Trolling / Internet Trolls - What Do You Define As?

محروم.كوم · #1 06-22-2010, 01:30 AM

I thought it was interesting to ask what others feel is considered trolling / being a troll within an online community, as it was raised in another post where I believe a member was trolling. I tend to occur with the wikipedia definition, which IMO states it pretty clearly, being:

Quote:
In Internet slang, a troll is someone who posts inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum, chat room, or blog, with the primary intent of provoking other users into a desired emotional response or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion. In addition to the offending poster, the noun “troll” can also refer to the provocative message itself, as in that was an excellent troll you posted. While the term troll and its associated action, trolling, are primarily associated with Internet discourse, media attention in recent years has made such labels highly subjective, with 'trolling' being used to describe many intentionally provocative actions outside of an online context.

Now I do not doubt that this member is primarily a nice person, though I myself can read that they are disgruntled. (Please don't focus on member specifics, as this is not the intent) So... does this being disgruntled with VB / IB for last years antics constitute trolling topics here with constant negativity or statements to invoke argumentative behaviour? I certainly understand those longer term users being disgruntled if they had loyalty to ex-developers, etc... but should we be stuck in the past with our own beliefs to then push those as opinions, or otherwise, consistently to newer members? Me personally, I like to leave the past in the past and move forward... I am a present / future type person, as the past is to be learnt from, but should not dictate our present directly, more indirectly via experience learnt. Our future is unknown, but out present we choose and make our own decisions on how we feel / treat others.

Does past devotion hinder one's ability at times to review all the facts? I believe so! I think at the worst end of this spectrum, one can them perform trolling behaviour as a result. I know I have either done it, or bordered it on some communities at a point where I had been really pis*ed off by something, but I also had to unfortunately accept when I was wrong, atleast to myself at worst.

So... do you agree with the wikipedia definition or you have your own view that differs? __DEFINE_LIKE_SHARE__