Post by Verminda Spirit on Jun 10, 2006 10:49:31 GMT
In Internet terminology, a troll is someone who comes into an established community such as an online discussion forum, and posts inflammatory, rude or offensive messages designed intentionally to annoy and antagonize the existing members or disrupt the flow of discussion (see Anonymous Internet posting).
Etymology
The contemporary use of the term first appeared on Usenet groups in the late 1980s. It is widely thought to be a contraction of the phrase "trolling for suckers," itself derived from the sport fishing technique of trolling, i.e. "[Leeroy Jenkins] is a troll". The latter can be compared with trawling.
The word likely gained currency because of its apt second meaning, drawn from the "trolls", which are portrayed in Scandinavian folklore, and children's tales, as often ugly, obnoxious creatures that are bent on wickedness and mischief. The image of the troll under the bridge in the "Three Billy Goats Gruff" emphasizes the troll's negative reaction to outsiders intruding on its physical environment, particularly those who intend to graze in its domain without permission.
Vicious circles
For many people, the characterising feature of trolling is the perception of intent to disrupt a community in some way. Inflammatory, sarcastic, disruptive or humorous content is posted, meant to draw other users into engaging the troll in a fruitless confrontation. The greater the reaction from the community the more likely the user is to troll again, as the person develops beliefs that certain actions achieve his/her goal to cause chaos. This gives rise to the often repeated protocol in Internet culture: "Do not feed the trolls."
Often, a person will post a sincere message about which he is emotionally sensitive. Skillful trolls know that an easy way to upset him is to falsely claim that he is a "troll." In forums where most users are similar to each other, outsiders may be perceived as trolls simply because they do not fit into the social norms of that group. It can sometimes be difficult to distinguish between a user who merely has different values, views, or ideas, and a user who is intentionally trolling. This can lead to genuinely hostile behavior, including flame wars.
Troll culture
The long history of trolling, and the strong support for anonymous and pseudonymous discourse on the Internet, suggests that the story of the "anonymous troll" is only beginning, and is expected to continue developing in subtlety and sophistication [citation needed]. Whether there can be a "culture" consisting of people who do not know each other, except through a common experience of being bounced from Internet forums, is questionable, but some do claim it is possible and already occurring.
There is strong evidence for this in the existence of forums that claim to exist specifically to support trolls and trolling, to exchange troll tips, and to identify targets that other trolls might fruitfully bait or debate.
Trolling culture is best observed in trolls, who do not know each other, working together. Because the common methods of creating inflammatory posts are well known, and a subject of jokes in many places on the Internet, it is sometimes possible for a troll to identify another troll in action. A troll, trolling another troll, often creates massive amounts of pretend drama between them that are taken seriously by non-troll observers (especially if they take sides). The end result is that the two trolls can work together to force a conversation to go off topic, or center a forum's discussion around themselves, more effectively than on their own.
Trolling as identity deception
A common tactic that many trolls resort to is the strategy of using multiple usernames or pseudonyms that are ready to use just in case a debate or argument emerges. By using multiple usernames (called "sock puppets" in this context) and a variety of artificial personalities the troll would have the ability to protect his image in a community. A troll would then also be able to increase his or her influence in an entire online community by simply using those other self serving nicks to increase the attention towards his or her most favored account. However, many users with more than one computer such as hardware buffs (Colloquial), computer repair shops and thrift stores often give each computer a unique name and use that name as the e-mail or newsgroup account username to identify the computer being used versus the user. Contrary to the purpose of deception this practice is followed with the intent of creating a verification record for the computer that was repaired or tested rather than to promote malice, ill will or evil intent. Sometimes the email reply address or other changeable header line is used for this purpose rather than the username line.
Online game communities that take tournament statistics and player rankings seriously are especially vulnerable to this type of trolling behavior. This is mainly due to the fact that since players take their rankings seriously, that some would resort to solidifying their reputations by creating self made threads designed to praise his favored account. Threads such as "most favorite players", "name your top ten players", etc. are suspected to be highly manipulated self-made threads designed to increase the influence and reputation of a specific username.
Pre-history
Prior to DejaNews's archiving of Usenet, accounts of trolling were sketchy, there being little evidence to sort through. After that time, however, the huge archives were available for researchers. Perhaps the earliest, although poorly documented, case is the 1982-83 saga of AlexAndJoan from the CompuServe forums. Van Gelder, a reporter for Ms. magazine, documented the incident in 1996 in an article for her publication. Alex (in real life a very shy 50 year old psychiatrist from New York) pretended to be a highly bombastic, anti-religious, post-car-accident, wheelchair-bound, mute woman named "Joan", "in order to better relate to his female patients". This went on for two years, and "Joan" had become a hugely detailed character, with an array of emotional relationships. These only began to fall apart after "Joan" coaxed an online friend of hers into an affair with Alex.
"Even those who barely knew Joan felt implicated — and somehow betrayed — by Alex's deception. Many of us on-line like to believe that we're a utopian community of the future, and Alex's experiment proved to us all that technology is no shield against deceit. We lost our innocence, if not our faith." (Van Gelder, 1996, p.534)
Trolling in the 1990s
One early reference to "troll" found in the Google Usenet archive was by user "Mark Miller", directed toward the user "Tad", on February 8, 1990 [1]. However, it is unclear if this instance represents a usage of "troll" as it is known today, or if it was simply a chance choice of epithet:
"You are so far beyond being able to understand anything anyone here says that this is just converging on uselessness. The really sad part is that you really believe that you're winning. You are a shocking waste of natural resources — kindly re-integrate yourself into the food-chain. Just go die in your sleep you mindless flatulent troll."
The more likely derivation can be found in the phrase, "trolling for newbies", popularized in the early 1990s in the Usenet group, alt.folklore.urban. Commonly, what is meant is a relatively gentle inside joke by veteran users, presenting questions or topics that had been so overdone, only a new user would respond to them earnestly. Others expanded the term to include the practice of playing a seriously misinformed or deluded user, even in newsgroups where one was not a regular; these were often attempts at humor, rather than provocation. In such contexts, the noun, "troll", usually referred to an act of trolling, rather than to the author.
New users of the internet now use the word where they actually mean "flamebait".
Identity
In serious literature, the practice was first documented by Judith Donath (1999), who used several anecdotal examples from various Usenet newsgroups in her discussion. Donath's paper outlines the ambiguity of identity in a disembodied "virtual community" [2]:
"In the physical world there is an inherent unity to the self, for the body provides a compelling and convenient definition of identity. The norm is: one body, one identity. ... The virtual world is different. It is composed of information rather than matter."
Donath provides a concise overview of identity deception games which trade on the confusion between physical and epistemic community:
"Trolling is a game about identity deception, albeit one that is played without the consent of most of the players. The troll attempts to pass as a legitimate participant, sharing the group's common interests and concerns; the newsgroups members, if they are cognizant of trolls and other identity deceptions, attempt to both distinguish real from trolling postings, and upon judging a poster a troll, make the offending poster leave the group. Their success at the former depends on how well they — and the troll — understand identity cues; their success at the latter depends on whether the troll's enjoyment is sufficiently diminished or outweighed by the costs imposed by the group.
Trolls can be costly in several ways. A troll can disrupt the discussion on a newsgroup, disseminate bad advice, and damage the feeling of trust in the newsgroup community. Furthermore, in a group that has become sensitized to trolling — where the rate of deception is high — many honestly naïve questions may be quickly rejected as trollings. This can be quite off-putting to the new user who upon venturing a first posting is immediately bombarded with angry accusations. Even if the accusation is unfounded, being branded a troll is quite damaging to one's online reputation." (Donath, 1999, p. 45)[3]
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Usage
The term troll is highly subjective. Some readers may characterize a post as trolling, while others may regard the same post as a legitimate contribution to the discussion, even if controversial. The term is often used to discredit an opposing position, or its proponent, by argument ad hominem. When appropriately applied to purposefully disruptive online behavior, the word troll economically converts an abstract code of online manners into a concrete image.
"Please do not feed the troll" images are meant to tell others not to encourage trolls by reacting to them.Often, calling someone a troll makes assumptions about a writer's motives that may be incorrect. Regardless of the writer's motives, controversial posts are likely to attract a corrective, patronizing or outraged response by those who do not distinguish between real physical community (where people are actually exposed to some shared risk of bodily harm by their actions), and epistemic community (based on a mere exchange of words and ideas). Customs of discourse, or etiquette, originating in physical communities are often applied naively to online discourse by newcomers who are not used to the range of views expressed online, often anonymously. Hence, both users and posts are commonly, and sometimes inaccurately, labelled as trolls when their content upsets people — ironically, the accusatory labeling of a troll may be more disruptive than the original alleged offense itself. Also, people may be more inclined to use epithets like troll in online public discussion than they would be in person, because online forums may seem more impersonal.
There is a quote on IMDb which says that the common troll does not understand the words 'opinion' and 'leave', meaning that it feels it has superior opinions and will not quit until reaching its own trolling satisfaction.[citation needed] Experienced participants in online forums know that the most effective way to discourage a troll is usually to ignore him or her, because responding encourages a true troll to continue disruptive posts to that forum — hence the often-seen warning "Please do not feed the troll", for which PDNFTT is a common initialism. Posting this warning publicly, in reply to a troll's behavior to discourage further replies, may discourage the troll. However, it can also have the reverse effect, becoming itself food for the troll. Therefore, when a forum participant sees an apparently innocent answer to a troll as potential troll food, it may be more prudent to deliver the "Please do not feed the troll" warning in a private message to the answerer (e.g., by email, or to the answerer's wiki Talk page).
Trolling in different Internet media
Trolling takes distinct forms in different media; it started on newsgroups, and as the Internet has evolved, so has trolling.
Usenet — hierarchies of newsgroups limit trolls' exposure, but cross-posting can overcome this. Some Internet service providers limit the number of newsgroups to which a message can be cross-posted. In a notable example, alt.net instituted a cross-post limit after the trolls on the system had become so notorious that a campaign was waged for other systems to cease exchanging news with alt.net until they did something about the problem.
Mailing lists are usually controlled by moderators, so unwanted contributors can quickly be banned.
SlashCode-based forums use a rating system so that readers can moderate a post up or down from its initial rating. Readers can then choose to ignore posts that others have "modded down." Timing of trolls is particularly important, since earlier posts are more likely to be read than later posts. An ideal troll would generate much heated discussion and posting without further intervention from the troll.
Wikis — the flat, asynchronous and open model allows anyone to post anything; users work to undo negative changes using the built-in reversion tools, but this requires hundreds of volunteers to monitor large popular sites. Trolls tend to be more subtle than in discussion groups, often posting material that could be legitimate, but will cause controversy by challenging the current power structure. Difficulty is compounded by the impossibility of discerning whether a user is simply espousing a controversial opinion, or trolling.
Weblogs — in their most common form as a personal soapbox with the ability for anybody to leave comments, popular weblogs often make effective springboards for trolls, either as inflammatory comments or provocative entries. The ease with which weblogs can be linked encourages troll propagation.
IRC — the open nature of most IRC channels on popular networks enables a troll to enter and utilise any of a range of techniques, ranging from simple crapflooding to subtly irritating remarks which trigger angry responses. The ease of evading bans from channels and servers and the volatile nature of many IRC users can allow trolls to perpetuate indefinitely.
Multiplayer first person shooters — online gaming attracts a large number of trolls, who take advantage of the combative atmosphere and their general anonymity to disparage other players. See pwn or noob for more information. Team killing and griefing -- breaking the social rules of the game to harass other players -- can also be considered similar.
Online Fantasy Sports — A troll will infiltrate a free, online league with multiple teams from different identity accounts and then attempt to make lopsided trades of players to improve one team. The troll will leave numerous messages on the league bulletin board from different identities to give the appearance of legitimacy to otherwise illicit behavior. Players that object to the obvious charade may be showered with insults and other attempts at evasion.
Web forums — Forums of all kinds attract trolls, whose behavior differs little from the above examples. Few forums are free of trolls, except for very small sites and those with very strict policies on trolling.
Defensive and recreational trolls
In some Internet subcultures, notably Kibology, the words "troll" and "trolling" have taken on a different meaning. Instead of the aggressive invader and his (sic) loud, often abusive posts, the terms refer to someone more subtle, seeking to create a loud, indeed furious response, to a post that may be moderate and even reasonable in its tone, while pushing the victim's hot buttons. This treatment may be applied to invaders, especially cranks such as Archimedes Plutonium or George Hammond (Scientific Proof of God, not the TV character) and the loud, obnoxious, self-centered kind of invader called trolls elsewhere.
Etymology
The contemporary use of the term first appeared on Usenet groups in the late 1980s. It is widely thought to be a contraction of the phrase "trolling for suckers," itself derived from the sport fishing technique of trolling, i.e. "[Leeroy Jenkins] is a troll". The latter can be compared with trawling.
The word likely gained currency because of its apt second meaning, drawn from the "trolls", which are portrayed in Scandinavian folklore, and children's tales, as often ugly, obnoxious creatures that are bent on wickedness and mischief. The image of the troll under the bridge in the "Three Billy Goats Gruff" emphasizes the troll's negative reaction to outsiders intruding on its physical environment, particularly those who intend to graze in its domain without permission.
Vicious circles
For many people, the characterising feature of trolling is the perception of intent to disrupt a community in some way. Inflammatory, sarcastic, disruptive or humorous content is posted, meant to draw other users into engaging the troll in a fruitless confrontation. The greater the reaction from the community the more likely the user is to troll again, as the person develops beliefs that certain actions achieve his/her goal to cause chaos. This gives rise to the often repeated protocol in Internet culture: "Do not feed the trolls."
Often, a person will post a sincere message about which he is emotionally sensitive. Skillful trolls know that an easy way to upset him is to falsely claim that he is a "troll." In forums where most users are similar to each other, outsiders may be perceived as trolls simply because they do not fit into the social norms of that group. It can sometimes be difficult to distinguish between a user who merely has different values, views, or ideas, and a user who is intentionally trolling. This can lead to genuinely hostile behavior, including flame wars.
Troll culture
The long history of trolling, and the strong support for anonymous and pseudonymous discourse on the Internet, suggests that the story of the "anonymous troll" is only beginning, and is expected to continue developing in subtlety and sophistication [citation needed]. Whether there can be a "culture" consisting of people who do not know each other, except through a common experience of being bounced from Internet forums, is questionable, but some do claim it is possible and already occurring.
There is strong evidence for this in the existence of forums that claim to exist specifically to support trolls and trolling, to exchange troll tips, and to identify targets that other trolls might fruitfully bait or debate.
Trolling culture is best observed in trolls, who do not know each other, working together. Because the common methods of creating inflammatory posts are well known, and a subject of jokes in many places on the Internet, it is sometimes possible for a troll to identify another troll in action. A troll, trolling another troll, often creates massive amounts of pretend drama between them that are taken seriously by non-troll observers (especially if they take sides). The end result is that the two trolls can work together to force a conversation to go off topic, or center a forum's discussion around themselves, more effectively than on their own.
Trolling as identity deception
A common tactic that many trolls resort to is the strategy of using multiple usernames or pseudonyms that are ready to use just in case a debate or argument emerges. By using multiple usernames (called "sock puppets" in this context) and a variety of artificial personalities the troll would have the ability to protect his image in a community. A troll would then also be able to increase his or her influence in an entire online community by simply using those other self serving nicks to increase the attention towards his or her most favored account. However, many users with more than one computer such as hardware buffs (Colloquial), computer repair shops and thrift stores often give each computer a unique name and use that name as the e-mail or newsgroup account username to identify the computer being used versus the user. Contrary to the purpose of deception this practice is followed with the intent of creating a verification record for the computer that was repaired or tested rather than to promote malice, ill will or evil intent. Sometimes the email reply address or other changeable header line is used for this purpose rather than the username line.
Online game communities that take tournament statistics and player rankings seriously are especially vulnerable to this type of trolling behavior. This is mainly due to the fact that since players take their rankings seriously, that some would resort to solidifying their reputations by creating self made threads designed to praise his favored account. Threads such as "most favorite players", "name your top ten players", etc. are suspected to be highly manipulated self-made threads designed to increase the influence and reputation of a specific username.
Pre-history
Prior to DejaNews's archiving of Usenet, accounts of trolling were sketchy, there being little evidence to sort through. After that time, however, the huge archives were available for researchers. Perhaps the earliest, although poorly documented, case is the 1982-83 saga of AlexAndJoan from the CompuServe forums. Van Gelder, a reporter for Ms. magazine, documented the incident in 1996 in an article for her publication. Alex (in real life a very shy 50 year old psychiatrist from New York) pretended to be a highly bombastic, anti-religious, post-car-accident, wheelchair-bound, mute woman named "Joan", "in order to better relate to his female patients". This went on for two years, and "Joan" had become a hugely detailed character, with an array of emotional relationships. These only began to fall apart after "Joan" coaxed an online friend of hers into an affair with Alex.
"Even those who barely knew Joan felt implicated — and somehow betrayed — by Alex's deception. Many of us on-line like to believe that we're a utopian community of the future, and Alex's experiment proved to us all that technology is no shield against deceit. We lost our innocence, if not our faith." (Van Gelder, 1996, p.534)
Trolling in the 1990s
One early reference to "troll" found in the Google Usenet archive was by user "Mark Miller", directed toward the user "Tad", on February 8, 1990 [1]. However, it is unclear if this instance represents a usage of "troll" as it is known today, or if it was simply a chance choice of epithet:
"You are so far beyond being able to understand anything anyone here says that this is just converging on uselessness. The really sad part is that you really believe that you're winning. You are a shocking waste of natural resources — kindly re-integrate yourself into the food-chain. Just go die in your sleep you mindless flatulent troll."
The more likely derivation can be found in the phrase, "trolling for newbies", popularized in the early 1990s in the Usenet group, alt.folklore.urban. Commonly, what is meant is a relatively gentle inside joke by veteran users, presenting questions or topics that had been so overdone, only a new user would respond to them earnestly. Others expanded the term to include the practice of playing a seriously misinformed or deluded user, even in newsgroups where one was not a regular; these were often attempts at humor, rather than provocation. In such contexts, the noun, "troll", usually referred to an act of trolling, rather than to the author.
New users of the internet now use the word where they actually mean "flamebait".
Identity
In serious literature, the practice was first documented by Judith Donath (1999), who used several anecdotal examples from various Usenet newsgroups in her discussion. Donath's paper outlines the ambiguity of identity in a disembodied "virtual community" [2]:
"In the physical world there is an inherent unity to the self, for the body provides a compelling and convenient definition of identity. The norm is: one body, one identity. ... The virtual world is different. It is composed of information rather than matter."
Donath provides a concise overview of identity deception games which trade on the confusion between physical and epistemic community:
"Trolling is a game about identity deception, albeit one that is played without the consent of most of the players. The troll attempts to pass as a legitimate participant, sharing the group's common interests and concerns; the newsgroups members, if they are cognizant of trolls and other identity deceptions, attempt to both distinguish real from trolling postings, and upon judging a poster a troll, make the offending poster leave the group. Their success at the former depends on how well they — and the troll — understand identity cues; their success at the latter depends on whether the troll's enjoyment is sufficiently diminished or outweighed by the costs imposed by the group.
Trolls can be costly in several ways. A troll can disrupt the discussion on a newsgroup, disseminate bad advice, and damage the feeling of trust in the newsgroup community. Furthermore, in a group that has become sensitized to trolling — where the rate of deception is high — many honestly naïve questions may be quickly rejected as trollings. This can be quite off-putting to the new user who upon venturing a first posting is immediately bombarded with angry accusations. Even if the accusation is unfounded, being branded a troll is quite damaging to one's online reputation." (Donath, 1999, p. 45)[3]
[edit]
Usage
The term troll is highly subjective. Some readers may characterize a post as trolling, while others may regard the same post as a legitimate contribution to the discussion, even if controversial. The term is often used to discredit an opposing position, or its proponent, by argument ad hominem. When appropriately applied to purposefully disruptive online behavior, the word troll economically converts an abstract code of online manners into a concrete image.
"Please do not feed the troll" images are meant to tell others not to encourage trolls by reacting to them.Often, calling someone a troll makes assumptions about a writer's motives that may be incorrect. Regardless of the writer's motives, controversial posts are likely to attract a corrective, patronizing or outraged response by those who do not distinguish between real physical community (where people are actually exposed to some shared risk of bodily harm by their actions), and epistemic community (based on a mere exchange of words and ideas). Customs of discourse, or etiquette, originating in physical communities are often applied naively to online discourse by newcomers who are not used to the range of views expressed online, often anonymously. Hence, both users and posts are commonly, and sometimes inaccurately, labelled as trolls when their content upsets people — ironically, the accusatory labeling of a troll may be more disruptive than the original alleged offense itself. Also, people may be more inclined to use epithets like troll in online public discussion than they would be in person, because online forums may seem more impersonal.
There is a quote on IMDb which says that the common troll does not understand the words 'opinion' and 'leave', meaning that it feels it has superior opinions and will not quit until reaching its own trolling satisfaction.[citation needed] Experienced participants in online forums know that the most effective way to discourage a troll is usually to ignore him or her, because responding encourages a true troll to continue disruptive posts to that forum — hence the often-seen warning "Please do not feed the troll", for which PDNFTT is a common initialism. Posting this warning publicly, in reply to a troll's behavior to discourage further replies, may discourage the troll. However, it can also have the reverse effect, becoming itself food for the troll. Therefore, when a forum participant sees an apparently innocent answer to a troll as potential troll food, it may be more prudent to deliver the "Please do not feed the troll" warning in a private message to the answerer (e.g., by email, or to the answerer's wiki Talk page).
Trolling in different Internet media
Trolling takes distinct forms in different media; it started on newsgroups, and as the Internet has evolved, so has trolling.
Usenet — hierarchies of newsgroups limit trolls' exposure, but cross-posting can overcome this. Some Internet service providers limit the number of newsgroups to which a message can be cross-posted. In a notable example, alt.net instituted a cross-post limit after the trolls on the system had become so notorious that a campaign was waged for other systems to cease exchanging news with alt.net until they did something about the problem.
Mailing lists are usually controlled by moderators, so unwanted contributors can quickly be banned.
SlashCode-based forums use a rating system so that readers can moderate a post up or down from its initial rating. Readers can then choose to ignore posts that others have "modded down." Timing of trolls is particularly important, since earlier posts are more likely to be read than later posts. An ideal troll would generate much heated discussion and posting without further intervention from the troll.
Wikis — the flat, asynchronous and open model allows anyone to post anything; users work to undo negative changes using the built-in reversion tools, but this requires hundreds of volunteers to monitor large popular sites. Trolls tend to be more subtle than in discussion groups, often posting material that could be legitimate, but will cause controversy by challenging the current power structure. Difficulty is compounded by the impossibility of discerning whether a user is simply espousing a controversial opinion, or trolling.
Weblogs — in their most common form as a personal soapbox with the ability for anybody to leave comments, popular weblogs often make effective springboards for trolls, either as inflammatory comments or provocative entries. The ease with which weblogs can be linked encourages troll propagation.
IRC — the open nature of most IRC channels on popular networks enables a troll to enter and utilise any of a range of techniques, ranging from simple crapflooding to subtly irritating remarks which trigger angry responses. The ease of evading bans from channels and servers and the volatile nature of many IRC users can allow trolls to perpetuate indefinitely.
Multiplayer first person shooters — online gaming attracts a large number of trolls, who take advantage of the combative atmosphere and their general anonymity to disparage other players. See pwn or noob for more information. Team killing and griefing -- breaking the social rules of the game to harass other players -- can also be considered similar.
Online Fantasy Sports — A troll will infiltrate a free, online league with multiple teams from different identity accounts and then attempt to make lopsided trades of players to improve one team. The troll will leave numerous messages on the league bulletin board from different identities to give the appearance of legitimacy to otherwise illicit behavior. Players that object to the obvious charade may be showered with insults and other attempts at evasion.
Web forums — Forums of all kinds attract trolls, whose behavior differs little from the above examples. Few forums are free of trolls, except for very small sites and those with very strict policies on trolling.
Defensive and recreational trolls
In some Internet subcultures, notably Kibology, the words "troll" and "trolling" have taken on a different meaning. Instead of the aggressive invader and his (sic) loud, often abusive posts, the terms refer to someone more subtle, seeking to create a loud, indeed furious response, to a post that may be moderate and even reasonable in its tone, while pushing the victim's hot buttons. This treatment may be applied to invaders, especially cranks such as Archimedes Plutonium or George Hammond (Scientific Proof of God, not the TV character) and the loud, obnoxious, self-centered kind of invader called trolls elsewhere.
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