the word TROLL - Page 3

On June 10 2010 18:16 intrigue wrote:
please, please please STOP THROWING AROUND THE WORD "TROLL" when you don't understand what it means. most of you reading this who just said to yourselves, "this does not apply to me, i know how to use that word" do not in fact know how to use that word. it makes you look dumb, makes me look dumb, makes our forums look dumb, and thus gradually decreases your chances of mating with cute TAs that you never thought were that cute but then you glimped them with their glasses off accidentally and realized they were actually super hot AND smart but she reads teamliquid and thinks you're dumb because you can't use a basic internet term correctly. that's incentive to read the following:

"trolling" does NOT include obvious bantering and/or joking and/or having simply contrary viewpoints and/or having simply earnest and stupid opinions.

it is a word adopted from this term:


source wikipedia (yeah that means i know damn well what i'm talking about)
this means the fish here are being trolled, which okay yeah it's pretty funny.

for those of you who cannot conquer the Analogy Obstacle Course, an internet troll (the ship captain) in his Internet Locomotive Device aka his computer (the boat) will make troll posts (the fishing bait) and watch as his victims are dragged in any direction he chooses.

What does this mean?
if you call someone a troll because you've had a heated argument with them, that means you just got all mad and fussed up by someone who did it just to entertain themselves, and that just makes you fucking stupid. think about what happens to fish after they are trolled!

What do we do?
bad trolls are very obvious, so calling them trolls is obnoxious like that overeager kid in the front row of class. ignore them. good trolls are harder to tell apart, but as long as you stay calm and don't take yourself too seriously (aka not biting their bait) you will survive unscathed. mods here especially are quite good at detecting trolls and will seek them out and ban them anyway. if you are really upset by one, pm a mod or use the report feature.

so here are my conclusions:
- it is always to not be an angry nerd
- it is always better to err on the side of not using the word "troll"

that last one is also because starting now temp bans will be handed out by me for blatant misuse, like "is this thread a troll? r u a trolling me??? qxD dxDDDDDD"

the holy trinity of teamliquid as of 06/10/2010:
bonjwa, metagame, and troll

have a good day everyone! take care!