Tom responded with another excellent definition:
A troll is generally defined as an individual who gets their kicks starting fights or angling for arguments. Intention is the issue here, not normally what the arguments contain.
Typical ways of triggering arguments for the sake of arguments include writing statements that the group concerned will NEVER agree with - these are often dressed up as challenging 'core assumpions'. However, in the vast majority of cases these core assumptions are the things that have been thought about MOST by members of a community - not least - and the community is actually normally trying to talk about something else...
For example - Barbelith is essentially a community based around a kind of idea of rebellion, entertainment, distrust of authority, freedom and tolerance of people. Basically - I suppose you could argue that it's anti-hate, futurist and (at some level) utopian...
With these as unspoken principles behind the site - it would be kind of ridiculous to come to the site and say homophobia or racism were good things. UNLESS YOU WERE MERELY ANGLING FOR AN ARGUMENT FOR FUN.
Most people who engage in most discussion get bored of confrontation as an end unto itself after a while and want to move on to talking about the things that interest them. People on barbelith, for example, generally LOVE to have their ideas challenged - but they also have to be CONVINCED by the challenge, PERSUADED by the challenge. If presented with a YOU'RE WRONG, or a bit of simple contradiction or very cheap argument. Trolls aren't generally interested in extending themselves beyond cheap rhetoric, obvious button-pushing and aggressively presented, but essentially shallow argument. And so they're not very interesting or welcome on most boards...
Having said all of that, I think that it would not be inconceivable to say that people with actual beliefs that they want to express, who don't have a sense of a board, may get unfairly categorised as trolls.
So yes - it's possible to say that if something someone said affected you at a very primal level, then you might react to them as if they were trolling when they had an honest question or thought. Similarly there might be a reaction to a home truth that people didnt' want to connect with. But generally, if these things are presented carefully and intelligently, they won't get this kind of relationship.
At the end of the day - a board is a community - and communities come together for a REASON - or in the case of Barbelith for many reasons... If someone comes to Barbelith for reasons that are antithetical to everyone elses - and actively worked against them, then it is possible that they wouldn't feel particularly welcome.
But to be honest I can't understand why they'd be here in the first place - why actively fight to have your say in a space populated by people who react really badly to everything you say - and with a group as liberal as Barbelith, shouldn't the assumption not immediately be that Barbelith people are over-reacting, but that actualy you may have said something kind of dumb... – Tom |
