It is a wrong thing to do, just as it would be wrong to flick someone on the tip of their nose every once in a while just because you wanted to see their reaction.
It’s an act being undertaken for the sake of amusing yourself, not for engaging in conversation. That is trolling and that is being a jerk. Both of these things are prohibited. They aren’t prohibited in the sense of “Don’t live your life as a jerk.” They’re prohibited in the sense of, “Don’t do it, ever. Not once.”
Why would the SDMB want someone specifically going out to troll people – however infrequently? What does this add to any thread? Why do you personally have the right to decide when a thread needs to be shaken up and dislodged? Maybe you think someone needs to lighten up, but that’s not your choice to make. There are thousands of other people here who may very well think that the conversation is going just fine and don’t want you to derail it. There are possibly thousands of people who would be quite happy to reach out and tweak someone any time they simply felt in the mood to do so, and if they were allowed to do that, no discussion would ever make it through to its end.
If you don’t want to discuss something, if you don’t want to talk with someone, you have full right to go post in a different thread or to put that poster on ignore. You do not have any right to decide that a thread or a poster isn’t worth being heard by anyone else. Only if you honestly think that someone is breaking the rules somehow may you do anything to disrupt the conversation, and that is limited to informing a moderator and letting the moderator make the decision.
Anything else is either being a troll, being disruptive, or being a self-centered ass. Acting like any of those is against the rules. Don’t do it. If you don’t want to have to behave like a civilized and humble poster 100% of the time, go to a forum that allows trolls and jerks. It’s that simple.
You’re confusing intent, Randal. Everyone can forgive when someone does something uncool, the mods say “Hey, cool it,” and the poster cools. That’s the ‘occasional’ that’s being talked about.
But making it a habit, even an infrequent one (and, I must say, your habit is far from infrequent), is something that has to be dealt with. Posting in good faith and improvement will forgive a lot. Posting in bad faith, no matter how infrequently, will eventually get you canned.
Ayuh. The only reason tom mentioned GD specifically is because he runs that particular forum.
Thing is, I think a binary position would go against him. I have not found any of his posts to be essential to the understanding of a thread. This implies he has not contributed anything other than the trolling posts already mentioned.
I’d much rather be thought of as someone who occasionally throws out trolling posts than as an actual troll.
I’m thinking of this in terms of the board rules, not a position on whether or not Rand Rover is a troll. His argument seems to be this: if a poster trolls nearly all the time, then almost all of his posts are trolling. That shouldn’t be allowed and that poster should be banned. But if a poster isn’t trolling all the time, his posts are just tweaking and they should be okay. The problem with this is that it’s trivially easy for even an obvious troll to make some allowable posts. So that approach doesn’t work.
That’s one reason we feel it’s a good idea to warn people for trolling in a particular post or thread rather than just declaring “you are a troll” and throwing them out, and we’ll usually give multiple warnings for trolling before we consider a ban. We do keep a poster’s history in mind iin making decisions about his or behavior and our response, but we don’t have to limit our rulings to ‘this is fine, he’s not a troll’ or ‘he’s a troll, let’s ban him.’
Because it’s a dick thing to do. At least insofar as “getting a rise out of people” means deliberately annoying them because you think they are small-minded or something along those lines.
Yes, I think they know that. Does that mean they have to put up with it all the time?
Probably not. But then again, this is a message board. Practically nothing here causes irreparable damage, so that’s not the standard we use. The standard is something more like ‘is this good for the board, and is it in keeping with the kind of board people here want to have?’
A single troll post might not do a lot of damage, but it’s like dings in a car. One or two tiny dings might not matter, if the car isn’t brand new. However, if you get enough dings, and they don’t get fixed, they will have an adverse effect on the car’s value. Basically, we don’t want people dinging this message board just for fun. YOU might be having fun, but you make the board less fun for most of the other users.
When we ban people, it’s based on what they’ve done, not what they say they are going to do. (With the exception of threats to sue or hack the boards.) Rand Rover asked for an explanation of a rule he’s had a problem with, so having explained it to him, we hold out hope that he’ll get it.
It’s not required that you agree with our definition of trolling, or our policy against it. All that is required is that you abide by the rules here and our interpretation of them, which you agreed to do when you signed the Registration Agreement.
You have made it abundantly clear in this thread that you understand the definition of trolling that we employ (even if you disagree with it or think it unreasonable). You have also made it clear that you enjoy trolling (by our definition) and engage in it for your own entertainment.
The bottom line is: don’t engage in any further trolling on this board. If you have a shadow of a doubt about whether a post or thread might be considered trolling, you would be well advised to contact a moderator beforehand to seek their opinion on it. Additional trolling posts by you will be subject to warnings, and will jeopardize your posting privileges. If you enjoy other aspects of the board besides trolling, you need to decide whether it is worth it.
This is interesting, I have been accused of trolling while being sincere in my posts all the time. So if people get upset at your post then it might be considered trolling based on the judgement of the mod. If some of the other posters called you names, insult you, and launch personal attacks on you it is OK, because you don’t believe as the majority do and you could be called for trolling. http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=12604218&postcount=411
Scientific explanation of the word “theory”:
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Keywords are “proposed explanation” this does not mean there are any facts involved. This is just like all the proposed explanations for the ghost stories that I guess some really thought to be valuable.
Intent is an issue in trolling. If people are upset at something you post but there is no indication you were trying to upset them, it isn’t trolling.
This is not true.
I’m tempted to correct your comments about theories, because the definition you quoted (as opposed to the one you added) sounds good to me. But experience shows that’s useless. I think everybody who posts in Great Debates has tried to tell you the meaning of theory at least once, and it’s never made a dent. So we should probably not drag it into this thread.
I think there is some truth to this. I think it may have started with you having a different viewpoint, but I think it’s now simply YOU and not your viewpoint. You personally will be judged and what you say will probably be looked at in a harsher light than others.
There are some really good mods here, there really are. There are also a few who want to play games and show you what they can do with what little power they’ve been given. It’s not really a flaw of the board, it’s a character flaw of those who are acting in this way. That’s not going to change.
If you end up getting banned I get the impression that it won’t really bum you out for even a day, so just participate as you see fit and whatever happens will happen.
People with a minority viewpoint might be more likely to be accused of trolling. But at least as far as Rand Rover is concerned, the issue is usually how he presents his opinions, not just what he says.
