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New Words for Trolls

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ONLY NICE THINGS

14:47 / 18.11.02

Fridgemagnavox (which, worryingly, I keep reading as "Fridgeultravox") suggested that we need a new word for "troll" in the "Is this thread dying II" thread, and I think it's a darts idea. Barbelith has so many highyl idiosyncratic bits of language (sheepdrone mulch, anyone?) that it seems entirely appropriate to create something shiny and new to describe trolls, without the wear and tear of popular usage or the nasty associations.

To start the ball rolling - how about "bagelfucker"?

Eloi Tsabaoth

14:52 / 18.11.02

I quite like 'Stirrer', but that implies some kind of status quo being disrupted.
'Daytripper'? Too John-Paul-George-And-Ringoey.
'Prodder'. I just have the image of someone sitting next to you, prodding and prodding with their finger...
No, these are all awful.

The Natural Way

14:55 / 18.11.02

Unfortunately, I've changed my name to the most annoying *word* I could think of, so I haven't a lot of energy left for the trolls.

I may RUNCE creaming back to my old suit some time soon.

Jack Fear

14:56 / 18.11.02

I see "troll" as a perfectly useful word: I simply think it's overused here, and out of its proper context.

"Trolling" comes from the term used in fishing--playing out the line, looking for a nibble. It is not, to contradict the abstract, simply practicing "behaviours we don't like"--it's about provoking a response, literally "baiting" the reader.

A troll in the true sense is never clueless--there's always an element of (a) self-awareness, and (b) awareness of one's surroundings to trolling--of knowing what the hot buttons and taboos are in a particular community, and tailoring one's messages specifically to push those buttons.

People who are genuinely ignorant jerks, and who honestly don't know what the fuss is about, are another matter entirely.

Ethan Hawke

14:57 / 18.11.02

Noodge - a conflation of our erstwhile thorn-in -ide with the nickname of Ted Nugent, conservative troll and PETA-bating rock star.

w1rebaby

15:21 / 18.11.02

...similarly, a troll who is prepared to argue a bit but is still clearly a wind-up merchant could be a "burchill"

Less searchable M0rd4nt

17:07 / 18.11.02

'Scuse me, Miss-- fridge made me spray cheap Californian vino all over my keyboard.

The T-word needs a decent burial round these parts, 'coz it's now become an all purpose boo-word. As such, it doesn't tell us much. Nooge is good, but a lot of people would probably like that. "Wind-up merchant" is a bit too unwieldy. "Shitstirrer" is always quite satisfying.

schwantz

18:09 / 18.11.02

A good one for Barbelith would be "Hausing." As in "Stop Hausing my thread with quibbly semantic arguments."

Spatula Clarke

18:14 / 18.11.02

Such an amusing post, schwantz, I almost blinked. Shame about the timing, eh?

schwantz

18:36 / 18.11.02

Sorry, that should have read "quibbly, PC semantic arguments"

Less searchable M0rd4nt

18:38 / 18.11.02

I'm all for Hausing. As in "Stop Hausing my thread with random attacks on Haus".

Badbh Catha

18:49 / 18.11.02

If the people that spend so much time & energy castigating Haus would instead use that time & energy to actually read and comprehend what he's saying, they might actually learn something besides "Haus is a meanie – he keeps calling me on my shit."

Please grow up, schwantz, and stop picking on someone you clearly don't understand.

Um.. oh yes, the topic. I'm with Mordant, "Shitstirrer" is a good choice...

schwantz

18:59 / 18.11.02

First of all - get a sense of humor.

Second of all - "Grow up?" Where do you get off telling me I "don't understand" someone? Haus hijacked my thread on religion with a bunch of snide comments and questions (which he obviously didn't want any answers for) about the "origins of PC." I "understood" his "arguments" just fine. He was trolling. He had nothing to say about the thread, and instead decided to try and pick at me because I dared to invoke the shorthand term "PC" on Barbelith.

So, I guess Haus must be some kind of big cheese around here, since he doesn't even have to defend (or laugh at) himself - his supplicants will take care of "problems" like me FOR him.

Jack Fear

19:19 / 18.11.02

...or perhaps some of us recognized, as you failed to do, that the monolothic entity against which you were railing is not so monolithic after all, and may in fact be all smoke and mirrors: wouldn't be the first time one side of a debate has fabricated a "vast conspiracy" out of an inchoate mood of opposition, just to give itself a punching bag: the "Political Correctness Movement" is about as substantial as the old "International Communist Conspiracy" was.

Rather than take the tack that I've taken, and contradict you directly and leave hanging in the air the suggestion that you are a credulous dupe of the Right, the Haus instead left you to discover the weakness of your argument yourself, by giving you enough rope with which to hang yourself. Which you've done, in spectacular fashion.

Less searchable M0rd4nt

19:38 / 18.11.02

So if I see somebody using "The Protocols Of The Elders Of Zion" to defend their position, and I go "Now hang on a minute-- wasn't that a big fradulent load of bollocks?" then I'm trolling?

Oh. Okay then. Paint me green and show me to the billygoats.

schwantz

19:40 / 18.11.02

Maybe if you folks weren't so concerned with self-satisfied back-slapping, you'd see I called MYSELF "PC" in my thread. Not only that, but I acknowledged that there never was a "PC" movement. The term PC is shorthand, like I said in THIS thread.

Back to THIS topic. All I did was make a joke about Haus, who others have agreed is a major troll himself. Geez.

Jack Fear

19:41 / 18.11.02

Don't obfuscate: the whole point of my invocation of the Protocols is that yes, it is a pernicious fiction that some folks are peddling as truth.

Rather like whole "PC Movement."

Jack Fear

19:47 / 18.11.02

Yes, schwantz, we know that "PC" is shorthand. But my point (and I suspect Haus's, though I can't speak for him) is that the thing that "PC" is shorthand for is... well, smoke and mirrors.

Blaming your linguistic difficulties on a mythical "movement" designed to quash your freedom of expression holds about as much water, rhetorically, as saying "I'm not allowed to speak my mind on this board because you're all agents of the International Communist Conspiracy!"

A scattering of speech codes adopted by colleges independently of one another, a similar scattering of stylebook directives in newspapers, all arising more-or-less spontaneously, without any overriding controlling body or central committee--these things do not constitute a "movement."

Spatula Clarke

19:50 / 18.11.02

I'm sure Haus doesn't need, nor expect me to defend him. You see, though, that's not what I, Mordant or Badbh were doing. Allow me to spell it out with a quick lesson about humour: jokes are generally funny the first time you hear them, less so the second. By the twentieth, they're tiresome.

If I were being less charitable, I'd also mention how the use of the phrase "get a sense of humour" tends to be used by those who really don't understand funny, and that overuse of finger-pointy "quotations" usually a signifies an inability to form an argument intelligently and a certain egoism - the tendency to feel that one is specifically being singled out for a kicking by some mythical vocal minority is either serious paranoia or extreme big-headedness, yes? But I'm in a generous mood, so I won't.

Jack Fear

19:54 / 18.11.02

Well, I will.

Consider, if you will, the possibility that the reason you found yourself on the losing side of the argument was not becauyse the opposition was using rhetorical dirty tricks, but because your argument was weaker than Superman with a kryptonite dildo up his fundament.

Now dust yourself off, square your shoulders, and stop being a fucking crybaby.

Kit-Cat Club

19:57 / 18.11.02

Right, point's been made, let's move on...

schwantz

20:00 / 18.11.02

Gee, thanks for your "generous" mood.

Did any of you read my thread? Did any of you notice I was asking tough questions about my own opinions, and that some people actually THOUGHT about their responses in terms other than their semantic cleverness before posting. That some people actually chose to try and understand where I was coming from rather than find a word that was offensive to them and jump all over it?

I know we're deep into meta-recursiveness here, but it is ironic that people who so violently disbelieve in the PC myth are so upset by language, and the term "PC," that they would rather I just shut up than try and express any dissent, or even just point out the existence of the intolerance of dissent on this board.

It's weird when you end up being something you don't believe in...

Spatula Clarke

20:02 / 18.11.02

Right, point's been made, let's move on...

Nice try.

Kit-Cat Club

20:07 / 18.11.02

Well, I think schwantz was probably composing his post when I made mine, so he wouldn't have seen it. And I *was* actually rather uncomfortable with the spectacle of several posters lambasting someone for an unfortunate thread which has fallen well off the front page by now. The comment about Haus was daft because it was bound to attract ridicule, but... well.

Trolls... fuckbakes?

Badbh Catha

20:08 / 18.11.02

Um, this thread isn't about your thread, schwantz? Nor is it really about you?

Enough histrionics, please. We're trying to find a new name for trolls here.

schwantz

20:08 / 18.11.02

Letting it go soon...

Gosh. I'm SO impressed you guys could make an argument against my subject heading ("Anyone up for an anti-religion jihad?"). Next time, try reading the postings (not just scanning for words to attack) underneath the heading before responding.

Trolls are definitely in the eye of the beholder, as we can see.

Less searchable M0rd4nt

20:25 / 18.11.02

PC... no sense of humour... intolerance of dissent... [insert poster here] is the Mekon... all want to silence me... all acolytes/slaves/minions of [insert poster here]...

Mmmm. Y'know how a certain comment can seem so prickly the first time you hear it, and then after you hear it a few times it aquires the velvety texture of a well-worn pair of slippers?

*sings* Shiiiiite... soft as an eaaassy chair...

Stokers.

Honestly. You leave a baby unattended for a few seconds and he craps on the comforter. Next time we are collectively getting a cat. They're easier to train and they die sooner.

telyn

21:15 / 18.11.02

There is a person I know who is always fussing about stuff, and is really hard to work with as a result. She always wants to be in control and to have the last say in an argument. I nicknamed her 'gridski'.

ONLY NICE THINGS

21:18 / 18.11.02

For the record, though, Schwantz, I would have *loved* it if you had answered even one of my questions. Your failure to do so leaves me still woefully ignorant about where I can get a copy of the PC manifesto, and utterly in the dark about the history of the capital-M movement.

Or, to put it another way, you keep assuming that I and others were slagging you off for not being PC enough. We weren't. We may have been drawing attention to the fact that you are eight, but that's a very different matter. And if, having been escorted to the city limits and handed the keys to a brand-new Mustang convertible, you choose to remain in Allaboutmeville (pop. 1), that's hardly our lookout.

Drive safe now.

The Return Of Rothkoid

21:35 / 18.11.02

Fucktrumpets. Because it takes the initial reaction at one of their postings (or their multisuited reappearances), and couples it with an instrument of broadcast. Like a fleshly Tannoy.

And trumpets can be muted, too, so there's room to describe the whole chiaroscuro of dumbass behaviour.

schwantz

21:40 / 18.11.02

I don't get it, Haus. I told you two or three times that there never was a PC "movement," or manifesto or anything. I was using "PC" shorthand for a form of extreme moral relativism that can be paralyzing. I explained all that, twice, I think. Did you not read anything I wrote? In fact, I even posted a link to a pretty explanatory website for you to look at.

All while knowing that you didn't actually give a shit about anything I wrote or thought about. All you REALLY wanted was to show off to your adoring fans how clever you can be. It's called "trolling," dude. You seem to have mastered the art.

Then you call me a baby, and "8." I'm trying hard not to be insulting, as I feel very insulted by you.

Arsebiscuits.

Incidentally, I'm with Schwantz here (and I haven't even read the offending thread! ho ho!) And I feel sorry for him that no-one's offering support.

I know this belongs on another thread, but - my God - Barbelith occasionally (see above) feels like a mutual (ego/intellect) wank-fest.

Oh, hey! You guys were here first! I'm sorry! Can I join your club!

Oh, actually, it's not yours, is it?

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