POWIP Piece of Work In Progress

25Nov/0941

Ponderings on the Life and Etiquette of Trolls

A fascinating set of questions was put forth by Meep today. These questions deserve to be answered. As such, I have decided they are worthy of a distinct post. This post, in fact. So, I post Meep's questions and turn the floor over to Meep to tend to the discussion.

I’ve been wondering how one gets a dedicated troll.

And why at many blogs there seems to be only one [at least, at a time]… is there some kind of claim-staking that occurs, or some kind of troll distribution system?

Or maybe a new troll checks out a site, sees someone is already there, and moves on?

Truly worthwhile questions. Deserving of answers. Or, at the very least, further investigation.

I would like to add my own Meep-inspired questions to the mix. Foremost is this one: can Trolls bi-locate? Or, to Meep's point, can they only haunt one blog at a time? But there are other questions too. Is there some Troll Code of "honor"? Do taller Trolls haunt more robust blogs? Is there a hierarchy among Trolls? Are there distinct flavors of Trolls? Do they travel in packs - ever? Who governs them and where do they come from?

And then there's this: Troll support group?/Confessions of a Troll?

The first rule about troll etiquette is that we don't talk about troll etiquette.

The second rule about troll etiquette is that we don't talk about troll etiquette.

The third rule about troll etiquette is that if it is your first troll, you still have to post something.

Basically troll etiquette, is simply put, you take the net etiquette about using the Internet...and you basically do the opposite of what it says. Instead of being nice and polite to others, you are angry and upset and impolite to others. Instead of using logic, reason, and critical thinking, you use illogic, emotions, logical fallacies, and name calling if you have to as well as personal attacks and strawmen and other fallacies.

- Troll Hard

Enoch_Root

Person with kids,a beautiful wife, a job. Catholic of the Latin Rite.

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  1. Joe
    November 25th, 2009 - 07:15

    So basically Jeff Goldstein kicked out thor and Dan Collins gave him a home? Is that how it worked out?

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    • Enoch_Root
      November 25th, 2009 - 07:27

      well, it seemed like the Christian thing to do. But it is hard to abide, I assure you.

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    • Enoch_Root
      November 25th, 2009 - 07:31

      it’s actually more like an infestation. like when you cut down a tree with the Emerald Ash Beetle in it and then bring the logs to Deer Camp up north… one never intends to give them a home. Or it can be likened to a poltergeist – it’s not like you make room for them.

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    • Clark Peoples
      November 25th, 2009 - 08:55

      Ghoster Goldstein kicked himself off his own blog, hahaha. I think he’s already figured out his victimized-by-liberals act is past its freshness expiration date.

      And you Joe, obviously you’re still verklempt over Charles Johnson showing you the exit. Maybe Dan will offer you a home once you’re over Charles.

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  2. carin
    November 25th, 2009 - 08:19

    I’ve got two trolls at my blog, which isn’t remarkable until you consider my low readership.

    Of course, Jeff’s got three or four trolls who are actually all the same person (or live together) so that’s another interesting phenomena/troll behavior.

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    • Clark Peoples
      November 25th, 2009 - 08:42

      The funniest of teh funny is a dumbshit like Carin, troll of trolls.

      The fuck cares what you have to say, ya dumb loser? Yet you troll around acting as if people do care, as if persons actually care about your words for no other reason than you’re a dumbassed r-winged waterhead.

      Sorry, no shortage of dumbassed waterheads here, Carin. Go parrot and re-parrot over at PW.

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    • Meep
      November 25th, 2009 - 08:50

      Okay. I’m just used to seeing one active troll at a time in the blogs I go to.

      And I’m not talking about people merely critical of the blog posters – nothing wrong with disagreeing with the content of the blogs.

      I can get into a natural history of trolls, maybe some sort of cladogram, but I really don’t care to.

      I am reminded of the Brickyard Preacher[s] at NC State [Rev. Birdsong in particular] and it got to be that I couldn’t hear what the man said, even if I was standing right next to him. My brain just filtered it out and did not interpret the sounds into language.

      Similarly, I find my eyes sliding over troll posts, once I recognize the style.

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  3. Meep
    November 25th, 2009 - 08:51

    Hmmm, maybe I’m thinking of unfun trolls vs fun trolls.

    I’ve seen some hilarious trolls around. I guess once I find them entertaining, I don’t really lump them in with other trolls. Must ponder.

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    • Enoch_Root
      November 25th, 2009 - 08:57

      I have never encountered a funny troll – what are they like?

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      • Clark Peoples
        November 25th, 2009 - 09:04

        They’re just like you, except they’re funny.

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      • DarthRove
        November 25th, 2009 - 09:29

        A fun troll is akin to that movie that’s so bad, it’s fun to watch. But only if there is clever banter taking place around the troll’s inaneries. (Think Mystery Science Theater 3000, one of my all-time favorite series).

        Once it descends into an ad hominem battle, it’s not fun anyore.

        Also it’s not fun when the troll is a talking point cut/paster. Yawn.

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    • Clark Peoples
      November 25th, 2009 - 09:02

      Looks like Meep troll is gonna be a fun troll.

      Hey Meep troll, those who punk your troll ass you can call trolls, I mean if that’s all you got that’s all you got.

      “I am a man of the town,” as Pushkin used to say, matter of fact thor comes from downtown, hick toots.

      You read much, Meep? No?

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  4. Enoch_Root
    November 25th, 2009 - 09:04

    I wonder if there are any conventions for Trolls. Are there unions? Brotherhood of the Troll, perhaps? With secret handshakes and all that? Are there any albino trolls?

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    • Clark Peoples
      November 25th, 2009 - 09:17

      I’ve heard trolls have wild orgies, ruminate quietly, drink vodka, burp vodka, corrupt institutions, regard revolutions as necessary and leave petit-bourgeois conservatives contorted in horror.

      Oh wait, Carin-types are trolls; it’s the poets who undermine all that you hold dear, Eno. My bad.

      Never turn your back on a poet!

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      • Enoch_Root
        November 25th, 2009 - 09:55

        Libs are hardly revolutionary, Thor… rather they are Devolutionary. Been there, done that… BORING

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        • Blackiswhite, Imperial Consigliere
          November 25th, 2009 - 10:11

          Hmmm. I would have said “Mentally dysfunctional”, because they are so wedded to failed ideas and methods of attack. Still, to each his own.

          You guys have a real cute cupcake here in tor/clark/I’moffmymeds. I’m guessing he’s the darling of his cellblock and could teach St. Andi of the Power Glutes a few techniques and tips. In otherwords, he’s fascinating in a “I-can’t-turn-away-from-the-trainwreck” sorta way.

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        • Clark Peoples
          November 25th, 2009 - 10:26

          Cupcakes and meds, yada, yada; you’re futile act fails the cutesy threshold, lametard.

          Try working spasmodic convulsions or whoring servant or razor-scarred wrists into your pedestrian snark.

          Do you read much? No?

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        • Clark Peoples
          November 25th, 2009 - 10:18

          Hot-ass American chicks dig revolutionaries and poets and guys named Seamus and Jacques.

          No hot-ass for you, you Victorian-era throw-back.

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        • Blackiswhite, Imperial Consigliere
          November 25th, 2009 - 10:44

          Hot-ass American chicks dig revolutionaries and poets and guys named Seamus and Jacques.

          No hot-ass for you, you Victorian-era throw-back.

          Yeah, ’cause nothing says “I’m an easy mark and a complete sucker like a Che’ t-shirt, the latest Noam Chomsky tome tucked under the arm, and $7 latte in hand as you cut the classes Mommy and Daddy are paying for just so you can look “cool” at the local Starbucks, and maybe pick up a skank as intellectually vapid as yourself.

          You’re beyond pity, because you clearly have chosen to be stupid, and are doomed to be the poster child for failed lib policies like “social justice/wealth distribution” because you just bristle at the fact that the only job anyone will hire you for requires you to say “Do you want fries with that?” 300 times a day.

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        • Clark Peoples
          November 25th, 2009 - 11:05

          Or what if, little capitalist wanna-be, I know more about capitalism than you ever will?

          Or if the Noam Chomsky tome tucked under my arm is Syntactic Structures?

          You’re in over your head, my little outhouse vulgarian.

          I come from downtown.

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        • Enoch_Root
          November 25th, 2009 - 11:35

          Blackiswhite – you forgot 10,000 Maniacs – Thor’s favorite Womyn’s Study Rock n Roll…

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        • Clark Peoples
          November 25th, 2009 - 11:38

          Mine fav is the Indigo Grrls, bitch!

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  5. carin
    November 25th, 2009 - 10:59

    Thor is a the bad-type troll, because he honestly does drive readers away.

    Good trolls make for active conversation. They are often terribly wrong and misguided, but they can make for a fun debate.

    Bad trolls usually have really small penises. And are misogynists.

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    • Meep
      November 25th, 2009 - 16:41

      Yeah, my husband said “why do they put up with that guy?”

      Some sites, I don’t read the comments at all. I try to read comments on my posts, but anybody who engages thor… sorry, you’re going to be ignored, too.

      If you want me to read your comment on any of my posts [to the non-thor people]: just put a non-reply comment in and I’ll read it [can't promise I'll respond]. I skip any thread started by thor.

      I don’t really mind thor, as I’m used to this kind of thing. I used to teach college math, and those people really hated my guts because they didn’t want to be there, but the college forced them to if they wanted the degree. I had some nasty things said to my face in real life, so I don’t get too worked up over anonymous commenters online.

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  6. Blackiswhite, Imperial Consigliere
    November 25th, 2009 - 11:37

    Or what if, little capitalist wanna-be, I know more about capitalism than you ever will?

    Or if the Noam Chomsky tome tucked under my arm is Syntactic Structures?

    You’re in over your head, my little outhouse vulgarian.

    I come from downtown.

    Then quit acting like the Touretts infant terrible’, and bring it, cupcake. You can start with something more than a whine about your insurance and electric bill on the latest thread, and actually explain why you were required to have the insurance in the first place, give examples of a ridiculous claim the eeeevvvviiillll insurance companies pay on a regular basis, including a cost benefit analysis of the cost of paying said claim vs. litigating with a pissed off homeowner whose claim was denied, and then, for shits and giggles, then give us a detailed analysis of the average cashflow of your local electric company, and then factor in the cost of repairing and replacing the electric poles that were all knocked down in the latest storm. For extra credit, you can also try to convince me that you wouldn’t be whining to anyone who is in earshot about how your eeeevvviiilll insurance company took your premiums for 17 years, and then the minute you made a claim, it was denied because another homeowner felt it was ridiculous.

    And while I wait for your lucid and cogent explaination of the above, we’ll see if pigs can fly.

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    • Clark Peoples
      November 25th, 2009 - 11:50

      I didn’t have any prop insurance claim, dumbwad. My place has the expensive mandated hurricane-proof windows because it’s across from the beach.

      All the broke-dick hick hordes scam their insurance company. I simply pay for their folly, and the entire content of their garages, evidently

      FPL and BellSouth bury their cable in our area, go figure, so there was no damage. It’s out in conservative dickville where they’ve have above ground telephone and power lines.

      I think a flying pig just shat on your head, pinky wiggles.

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      • Blackiswhite, Imperial Consigliere
        November 25th, 2009 - 12:27

        I think you have trouble reading. Cost-benefit analysis? Hel-lo?

        *taps on Clark’s empty skull, listens to echo*

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        • Clark Peoples
          November 25th, 2009 - 13:09

          Back in my college days I remember having to take a senior level Marketing class where we broke up into groups of five and wrote out little cost/benefit analysis reports on case studies involving lumber yards and widget makers. It seemed every group had one accounting and/or finance major – me – who did all the work while the rest were giggly marketing majors.

          Weren’t you that girl, pinky pigtails? Remember the final, the bound business plan on the boat marina we had to turn in? Yeah, I did all the work, wrote the whole fuckin’ thing, 24-pages, remember? And everyone in the group knows why, but did you ever figure out the why and whatfor of that? Because I did A quality work, pinky bristles, while yours looked like a confused autistic’s.

          I got that free A for ya back in college, pinky noodles, isn’t that enough?

          Hahahaha, Goddamn, you’re trying to make Meep troll look like comparative genius, aren’t ya.

          Fuckin’ cost/benefit, put your big boy pants on already.

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        • Blackiswhite, Imperial Consigliere
          November 25th, 2009 - 13:19

          I know, cupcake. It’s really, really tough when you finally realize what everyone else has known about you for a long, long, long time, namely, that you have simply been flapping your piehole about things that you really know nothing about for far too long. The look on faces like yours when that ephiphany comes is priceless. Don’t be a hater, though. You had plenty of warning. Here in the real world, adults are required to show their work. The tired “I don’t think it’s fair but I never bothered to educate myself about it” meme just doesn’t cut it.

          You ARE the weakest link. Goodbye.

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        • Clark Peoples
          November 25th, 2009 - 13:27

          Buh-bye, pinky snort. Enjoy bankruptcy court.

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        • Clark Peoples
          November 25th, 2009 - 15:04

          Looks like our pink tutu wearing r-wingered fairy fluttered off. If anyone wanted to read pinky’s coming lecture on the cost/benefits of his rural electric Co-Op up in Smoked Hick Proper, I sincerely apologize.

          That pinky juju couldn’t read well bothered me. And the fact he banked on his cool-boi blog-snark’ums being such fierce flying cream pies bothered me. I was, in fact, waiting for the clown car and red foam nose lines, and you just know he would have laid that musky clues in a clue field lameness on me, thus the eventuality of further worn out blog snark was, I felt, terribly bothersome.

          I’ll try to attract the higher echelons of skunk pellet eating, log cabin living, Sarah Palin loving dumbfocks in the future, I promise.

          Bob, bring me my hillbilly traps and hickboi foot snares. I’m also going to need the latest issue of Playgirl featuring Levi Johnston to bait the traps with, Bob, so prepare to cough up your copy.

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        • Bob Reed
          November 25th, 2009 - 22:43

          24 pages!?!?

          Our individual senior aircraft design projects easily ran 8 to 10 times that; with figures, graphs, and analytic formula derivations too! The spacecraft design projects looked like DC telephone books!

          Y’all sure got some slack…Of couse, I went to a good school…

          And thor, I’ve never even seen a playgirl magazine, so I guess you’ll have to use your own copy; you better get busy freeing the stuck together pages…

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        • Clark Peoples
          November 26th, 2009 - 11:29

          A business plan that’s a proposal isn’t supposed to be 200-pages, Uneducated Bob. They’re supposed to be condensed per their required format.

          Your one-upsmanship is a cute aside, Bob, but, see, I don’t really care. I love my .38 because I’ve been mowing down mother nature’s four-legged creations with it since I was 10-years-old, before that it was my Dad’s. I don’t care if Clint Eastwood’s .44 is a bigger gun, I know that it is, nor do I care if you there exists a phonebook-sized book of engineered plans that you once held in your hands. Who cares.

          Stop trying to compete with thor. He’s a white God. You’re not.

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  7. Loki
    November 25th, 2009 - 18:06

    Thor, may I suggest that you get professional help?

    You are insane and it’s getting worse over time, dude.

    Please, for your sake, for your family’s sake (that is if they still talk to you) and for the safety of the people around you, seek help.

    Reply

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  8. Cowboy
    November 26th, 2009 - 09:08

    meep said:

    If you want me to read your comment on any of my posts [to the non-thor people]: just put a non-reply comment in and I’ll read it [can't promise I'll respond]. I skip any thread started by thor

    This is a great idea. I’m like you, meep, I stop reading any thread that looks like thor is directing it. I’m a busy person, and I read here to learn and to engage in ideas–and I have NEVER learned from or been engaged by any comment of thor’s. I’ve been disgusted by his comments, and have been made to be profoundly sorry for him and for those who have to be around him, but really, there’s nothing there but bile.

    I suspect, like Carin, that he drives readers away–so meep’s suggestion seems to me to be a good way to move around his presence rather than engaging it.

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    • Clark Peoples
      November 26th, 2009 - 11:15

      Here’s a great idea, why don’t you, Cowardboy, and Meep troll get a room. Hahaha.

      Look, if you have anything to say that’s not mindbendingly stupid I’ll freely back your arguments up.

      Please don’t start publicly crying when I laugh at your cheap propaganda. It deserves to be laughed at. Humor me at your pleasure.

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