TLC
12-18-2007, 08:00 AM
Has anyone ever dealt with "trolls"? I'm curious because I had this happen to me and other members on an old message board I used to post too. This "troll" caused so much trouble for everyone involved. I thought she was a friend, but she was there to cause havoc. I was so convinced she was a friend, I even gave her my phone number and we spoke several times. I'm still stumped by her lack of sympathy and compassion towards another human being.
It's like she really enjoyed hurting others. She got real satisfaction from it. :(
http://trollpolice.com/tactics-to-expect/
"Tactics to Expect"
The Psychopathological Troll
The psychopathological troll is motivated to participate in an internet forum by psychotic delusions or compulsions, or by a neurotic seeking of false self-esteem. The postings of a psychotic troll are unlikely to make any recognizable sense at all. On SOLO, the moderation of first posters effectively eliminates truly psychotic trolls. The neurotic troll either seeks to obtain false self-esteem by manipulating the reactions of others, or by demonstrating his “power” to destroy what others enjoy. The neurotic troll is often manipulative enough to make it past the initial moderation. However, on a Randian site such as SOLO, the neurotic troll’s primacy of consciousness soon becomes evident: rather than respond substantively to the actual claims and arguments in the articles and posts he attacks, the neurotic troll twists and spins whatever he responds to, into whatever he has “the perfect answer” to. Then the original poster points out the manipulation and the neurotic troll is exposed. After two or three incidents of this type the neurotic troll usually gives up.
The Missionary Trol
The missionary troll is motivated to participate in an internet forum by a desire to win others to his favorite belief system, or at least to convince others that his belief system is worthy of consideration and respect. Thus, missionary troll’s primary focus is on how his participation in the forum affects the consciousness of others—while in contrast the truly selfish participant’s primary focus is to improve the correspondence to reality of his own knowledge. If an error of fact or logic is pointed out to a rational man, he will change his mind. If an error of fact or logic is pointed out to a missionary troll, the troll will either (1) ignore the correction, and proceed without regard to it, (2) misrepresent the correction and proceed regardless, (3) divert the argument in another direction to hide and ignore the substantive import of the error that was just identified. Indeed, the surest sign that one is dealing with a missionary troll is that he is totally evidence-proof and never changes his mind. The substantive litmus test of rationality versus trolldom is, when does one celebrate a success? I celebrate success when I bring my mind to a more accurate identification of reality. So, when comments in the discussion thread of my article on “The Ontology of Emergence” led me to reexamine Ayn Rand’s view of the status of relations as existents, I changed my mind, edited a correction into the article, and celebrated the achievement of a more accurate identification of the relevant facts than the one I had before. A troll, on the other hand, considers himself successful only if he changes the mind of someone else. Perhaps the only thing that I have never seen on the internet, is a troll changing his own mind.
Missionary trolls are pervasive, persistent, and above all numerous. They are the vast majority of active trolls. The following sections of this article, which deal with the identification of trolls and trollcraft, are applicable primarily to the missionary troll."
It's like she really enjoyed hurting others. She got real satisfaction from it. :(
http://trollpolice.com/tactics-to-expect/
"Tactics to Expect"
The Psychopathological Troll
The psychopathological troll is motivated to participate in an internet forum by psychotic delusions or compulsions, or by a neurotic seeking of false self-esteem. The postings of a psychotic troll are unlikely to make any recognizable sense at all. On SOLO, the moderation of first posters effectively eliminates truly psychotic trolls. The neurotic troll either seeks to obtain false self-esteem by manipulating the reactions of others, or by demonstrating his “power” to destroy what others enjoy. The neurotic troll is often manipulative enough to make it past the initial moderation. However, on a Randian site such as SOLO, the neurotic troll’s primacy of consciousness soon becomes evident: rather than respond substantively to the actual claims and arguments in the articles and posts he attacks, the neurotic troll twists and spins whatever he responds to, into whatever he has “the perfect answer” to. Then the original poster points out the manipulation and the neurotic troll is exposed. After two or three incidents of this type the neurotic troll usually gives up.
The Missionary Trol
The missionary troll is motivated to participate in an internet forum by a desire to win others to his favorite belief system, or at least to convince others that his belief system is worthy of consideration and respect. Thus, missionary troll’s primary focus is on how his participation in the forum affects the consciousness of others—while in contrast the truly selfish participant’s primary focus is to improve the correspondence to reality of his own knowledge. If an error of fact or logic is pointed out to a rational man, he will change his mind. If an error of fact or logic is pointed out to a missionary troll, the troll will either (1) ignore the correction, and proceed without regard to it, (2) misrepresent the correction and proceed regardless, (3) divert the argument in another direction to hide and ignore the substantive import of the error that was just identified. Indeed, the surest sign that one is dealing with a missionary troll is that he is totally evidence-proof and never changes his mind. The substantive litmus test of rationality versus trolldom is, when does one celebrate a success? I celebrate success when I bring my mind to a more accurate identification of reality. So, when comments in the discussion thread of my article on “The Ontology of Emergence” led me to reexamine Ayn Rand’s view of the status of relations as existents, I changed my mind, edited a correction into the article, and celebrated the achievement of a more accurate identification of the relevant facts than the one I had before. A troll, on the other hand, considers himself successful only if he changes the mind of someone else. Perhaps the only thing that I have never seen on the internet, is a troll changing his own mind.
Missionary trolls are pervasive, persistent, and above all numerous. They are the vast majority of active trolls. The following sections of this article, which deal with the identification of trolls and trollcraft, are applicable primarily to the missionary troll."