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Comment by Tycho | Hacker News Reader

This is not how I use the word troll or trolling. What this article describes I would simply call 'bullying' or anonymous bullying or in extreme cases harassment.

True trolling is about, among other things, plausible deniability. The troll identifies a pressure point in the collective unconscious of an online community, and then subtly attacks it. Depending on how skilled the troll is, what follows is a lot of attention and a large degree of over-reaction. The troll can then take the moral highground and pretend to be perplexed at these harsh responses, which of courses only provokes even more enraged responses. The cycle can be quite amusing. It can also generate/provoke lots of debate that a community would otherwise not be inclined to start.

It's not about personal attacks.

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"trolling is a art"

Always summed it up perfectly for me when trying to describe it simply. It's a subtle sentence, it begs to be corrected, and it's sure to incite replies... once someone "takes the bait" it's just a matter of working whatever their weakest point is to incite maximum rage. It's basically a form of social engineering when you boil it down to the basics.

"trolling is AN art"

"yeah, that's what I just said stupid..."

"well I'm not the idiot making simple grammatical erors."

"erors... you sure about that? Listen I went to Harvard for English studies... I think I know when to use A vs AN, it's not like I don't have an degree or something..."

... and the cycle continues ...

p.s. I might enjoy trolling more than the average bear.

I bet you also like geraffes.

It's "juraffes", idiot.

as in gif.

geraffes are so dumb.

Something something long horses, something something lol we both know Reddit lore something something shared knowledge is fun.

>p.s. I might enjoy trolling more than the average bear. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KxdSytVrRk

lmao @ "an degree"

> This is not how I use the word troll or trolling. What this article describes I would simply call 'bullying' or anonymous bullying or in extreme cases harassment.

They literally ask people to self-identify as trolling. And their items sound darn like trolling to me:

> We also included four items relevant to trolling that were interspersed in the other measures: ‘‘I have sent people to shock websites for the lulz’’, ‘‘I like to troll people in forums or the comments section of websites’’, ‘‘I enjoy griefing other players in multiplayer games’’, and ‘‘The more beautiful and pure a thing is, the more satisfying it is to corrupt’’

I mean, come on. There might be things to criticize about this study, but the measure of trolling definitely has 'face validity', as the psych types say.

> They literally ask people to self-identify as trolling

[...]

> And their items sound darn like trolling to me:

at first I lol'ed... but then i serious'ed.

The prototypical troll: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socrates

A good troll often expresses no view, and simply asks questions for which no good answer is provided. This is my favorite trolling question: "what evidence, if any, would convince you your theory is wrong?"

"what evidence, if any, would convince you your theory is wrong?"

This reminded me of a great article[1] that I read recently. It's not related to trolling, but trolls often engage in the type of discussion mentioned in this article. One of the parents gave an excellent example (the one with the "an degree" joke).

[1]: http://thefederalist.com/2014/01/17/the-death-of-expertise/

thanks for the link. :)

Yes, this is the highest form of trolling. When all you do is ask a question. Where the unspoken answer undercuts some prevailing narrative.

Whether it's about personal attacks or not is irrelevant. The definition of trolling you describe is selfish, immature, sadistic, and borderline psychopathic behavior. The troll specifically tries to piss people off for no other reason than he derives pleasure from it, basically the definition of sadism. At the very least the troll is wasting everyone's time including his own. Fuck trolls

Agree, I've never considered the typical internet troll to have either of those traits. They always seemed equivalent to immature people in real life, only, trolling being anonymous allows people who'd otherwise be intelligent enough to know how to act to not be considered immature, to be so.

I think the latter group are the ones you speak of, and yes, they are often strikingly funny.

As for the traits the study focuses on, those are what I myself often indulge in, yet I haven't trolled anywhere, ever, except maybe 4chan in my younger days, and despite having been an internet dweller for the last ten years at least.

Also the amount of false positives what people would call bulling is pretty significant. From jokes wannabe, mistakes, cultural differences.

same goes for quite a few behaviour perceived as negative in our skewed view of political correctness:

I've held the door to a female coworker and being told off by management for potential _sexual harassment_ ..... I've asked my friend how her female flatmate is doing these days and I am being called a _stalker_ ....

This is going way too far. This Anglo-saxon view of what is correct and what is not, feels like a psychological defense mechanism for people that cannot or do not want to deal with those situation. Protection a less able person is something, but hiding behind such rules feels like plain cowardice.

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