Good point though. Although that just changes trolls from “sociopaths” to… hm. Well, if you’re trolling someone to try and convince them that you’re a sociopath, at what point does your investment in this project become, and and of itself, a sign of sociopathy?Report
I read the link and the study it refers to, as far as I can tell, was about internet commenters and not necessarily those identified as “trolls,” unless I’m missing something or spent too few seconds skimming the article. Maybe the real takeaway is that internet commenters as a whole are, for example, narcissisti, or perhaps the web encourages narcissism. As much as I resent some of what Mr. Williams has said (and more important, done) about internet commenters, maybe he’s actually right.Report
I know a troll. He is a bonafide sociopath (He’s also intelligent enough to mitigate some of the disadvantages of that personality type).Report
It’s about all commenters, but the really negative stuff is most highly associated with trolling:
So we’re all here likely to be a bit more sadistic than normal, but the trolls are particularly so.
I admit that I don’t know what to think of the studies. I’m not sure how, uh, rigorous the authors were. For example, the mean daily commenting time is 1.07 hours/day in the first study, but when they break it down by gender, the male average is 0.88 hours and the female average is 0.49 hours. Either a lot of people didn’t report gender (something they should report in the paper, but don’t), and those people comment a lot more than those who did (also something they should report, but don’t), or I’m missing something (given that 42.4% of the respondents were female, and they averaged .49 hours of commenting a day, in order to get the 1.07 hours per day for all respondents, males would have to comment about 1.5 hours per day).
Chris,
they did two studies, but summed the two when reporting their N at the beginning (which seems to me to be downright misleading — although who just reads the abstract anyhow?)
The more FUN stats to pull are that Debating is positively correlated with Vicarious Sadism and Narcissism.Report
Kim, the abstract says “In two online studies (total N=…).” That’s hardly misleading.Report
“So we’re all here likely to be a bit more sadistic than normal”
Huh. I woulda figured us for a bunch of masochists.Report
“Would you do brain surgery on someone for a joke?”
“well, not if I liked them. Also, the joke would have to be pretty funny.”
… trolls are scary people. trolls with enough money/time/energy to actually hire brain surgeons are worse.Report
This definition of trolling seems… a bit whacked, too, by the way. Quintessential trolling (when not being done by polling firms, or PR agencies) is about creating a big kerfluffle, that you can post about on 4chan or another message board. It doesn’t have to be about annoying people.
In fact, annoying people is rarely as productive as you’d think (that whole blinking Epilepsy website thing aside). A troll would rather post a handdrawn picture of a new pokemon… (oh, my lord, did that one create a 3 day firestorm, trawling across multiple message boards, and getting official denials which Of Course weren’t believed).
yes, give a troll enough money, and he will build his own PR agency. So useful to get away with things — just intimate that they’re being done at the behest of someone Very Important (think google or amazon)… “What are you doing?” “PR Stunt.” It explains so much!Report
Well exactly – harassing people isn’t trolling, it’s harassment. Threatening them isn’t trolling, it’s uttering threats.
A beautifully executed rick-rolling, or getting someone to accept and use an incorrect definition of a word that leads to a strange and confusing conversation later – that’s trolling.Report
If you prank someone to the point where they tar and feather the server farm (and then turn on the sprinklers), that’s trolling.Report
I don’t know if it was from the same study but I remember reading a few weeks ago that trolls respond highly to negative commentary and it encourages them to be more trollish and bullying. Meanwhile people who write thoughtful things do respond to positive commentary but not in a way that encourages them to post more.
So tell a troll that they are horrible and vile and said troll will post more.
Tell a thoughtful person that they write really cool things and said person will probably not post more frequently.Report
Trolls like stimulation just the same as any other human. the fact that they take negative stimulation and think it’s fun… well, that’s slightly off normal, but still there.
Most of the “trolls” aren’t spending NEARLY enough time with writing “quality comments”. If you ever meet a troll who has to WORK to create a 3-day long firestorm, well, they’re not likely to do it again for a while (for one thing, you get significantly less bang for the buck that way).
If you controlled for “quality and effort of post” you’d find trolls actually comment less, because they need to spend more time analyzing the social network. (sidenote: counting online coups may be one of the few ways to get Autistic-spectrum folks to learn how to deal well with people. Some people like numbers.)Report
Note the insistence on keeping a 3star rating — so that amazon doesn’t pull the product (the product isn’t actually terrible, provided you don’t eat huge quantities at once).Report
At the risk of being troll-like, Gifts of Gab has stopped loading in both Firefox and Chrome on my Mac (still works on Safari).Report
The piece says, “Don’t feed the trolls”, but I’d add something.
If you have a banhammer, use it. The best method, especially for new identities, is to delete the comment, and then give an explanation why. Do not, however, be drawn into a debate. They sometimes will try. This will be the evidence that you needed to just ban them without comment.Report
Bring Back Knives!
If you let trolls be moderators, they’ll create methods so that someone can still think they’re posting to the right site, but in fact not be visible to anyone who is actually on the site. That makes them go away for good.Report
Personally, I believe that is ill-advised in most circumstances.
Unfortunately, I have more in thoughts than caring to express the matter in words.
I’ll let the statement stand as it is.Report
A little library time away from the library . . .Report
Most of the “trolls” I knew frequented a certain game community forum. They were, for the most part, kids. And by kids I mean below 25. That said, I did occasionally participate in being a troll. It was fun to push folks buttons on hot topics. Then the damn mods got involved 🙂Report
I’m just thankful that the trolls decided to answer the questions honestly.Report
+1Report
That’s very meta.
Good point though. Although that just changes trolls from “sociopaths” to… hm. Well, if you’re trolling someone to try and convince them that you’re a sociopath, at what point does your investment in this project become, and and of itself, a sign of sociopathy?Report
I read the link and the study it refers to, as far as I can tell, was about internet commenters and not necessarily those identified as “trolls,” unless I’m missing something or spent too few seconds skimming the article. Maybe the real takeaway is that internet commenters as a whole are, for example, narcissisti, or perhaps the web encourages narcissism. As much as I resent some of what Mr. Williams has said (and more important, done) about internet commenters, maybe he’s actually right.Report
I know a troll. He is a bonafide sociopath (He’s also intelligent enough to mitigate some of the disadvantages of that personality type).Report
It’s about all commenters, but the really negative stuff is most highly associated with trolling:
So we’re all here likely to be a bit more sadistic than normal, but the trolls are particularly so.
I admit that I don’t know what to think of the studies. I’m not sure how, uh, rigorous the authors were. For example, the mean daily commenting time is 1.07 hours/day in the first study, but when they break it down by gender, the male average is 0.88 hours and the female average is 0.49 hours. Either a lot of people didn’t report gender (something they should report in the paper, but don’t), and those people comment a lot more than those who did (also something they should report, but don’t), or I’m missing something (given that 42.4% of the respondents were female, and they averaged .49 hours of commenting a day, in order to get the 1.07 hours per day for all respondents, males would have to comment about 1.5 hours per day).
http://scottbarrykaufman.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/trolls-just-want-to-have-fun.pdfReport
Chris,
they did two studies, but summed the two when reporting their N at the beginning (which seems to me to be downright misleading — although who just reads the abstract anyhow?)
The more FUN stats to pull are that Debating is positively correlated with Vicarious Sadism and Narcissism.Report
Kim, the abstract says “In two online studies (total N=…).” That’s hardly misleading.Report
Chris,
*facefault*Report
Thanks for answering, Chris.Report
“So we’re all here likely to be a bit more sadistic than normal”
Huh. I woulda figured us for a bunch of masochists.Report
“Would you do brain surgery on someone for a joke?”
“well, not if I liked them. Also, the joke would have to be pretty funny.”
… trolls are scary people. trolls with enough money/time/energy to actually hire brain surgeons are worse.Report
This definition of trolling seems… a bit whacked, too, by the way. Quintessential trolling (when not being done by polling firms, or PR agencies) is about creating a big kerfluffle, that you can post about on 4chan or another message board. It doesn’t have to be about annoying people.
In fact, annoying people is rarely as productive as you’d think (that whole blinking Epilepsy website thing aside). A troll would rather post a handdrawn picture of a new pokemon… (oh, my lord, did that one create a 3 day firestorm, trawling across multiple message boards, and getting official denials which Of Course weren’t believed).
Not saying that the survey’s wrong, mind.Report
yes, give a troll enough money, and he will build his own PR agency. So useful to get away with things — just intimate that they’re being done at the behest of someone Very Important (think google or amazon)… “What are you doing?” “PR Stunt.” It explains so much!Report
Well exactly – harassing people isn’t trolling, it’s harassment. Threatening them isn’t trolling, it’s uttering threats.
A beautifully executed rick-rolling, or getting someone to accept and use an incorrect definition of a word that leads to a strange and confusing conversation later – that’s trolling.Report
If you prank someone to the point where they tar and feather the server farm (and then turn on the sprinklers), that’s trolling.Report
That’s epic,epic trolling.Report
I don’t know if it was from the same study but I remember reading a few weeks ago that trolls respond highly to negative commentary and it encourages them to be more trollish and bullying. Meanwhile people who write thoughtful things do respond to positive commentary but not in a way that encourages them to post more.
So tell a troll that they are horrible and vile and said troll will post more.
Tell a thoughtful person that they write really cool things and said person will probably not post more frequently.Report
Trolls like stimulation just the same as any other human. the fact that they take negative stimulation and think it’s fun… well, that’s slightly off normal, but still there.
Most of the “trolls” aren’t spending NEARLY enough time with writing “quality comments”. If you ever meet a troll who has to WORK to create a 3-day long firestorm, well, they’re not likely to do it again for a while (for one thing, you get significantly less bang for the buck that way).
If you controlled for “quality and effort of post” you’d find trolls actually comment less, because they need to spend more time analyzing the social network. (sidenote: counting online coups may be one of the few ways to get Autistic-spectrum folks to learn how to deal well with people. Some people like numbers.)Report
@kim
You write really cool things.Report
Gab,
Lol, I wish.
This is some seriously cool trolling:
http://www.amazon.com/Haribo-SUGAR-Classic-Gummi-Bears/dp/B006J1FBLM/ref=sr_1_1?s=grocery&ie=UTF8&qid=1412773698&sr=1-1&keywords=haribo+sugar+free+gummi+bears#customerReviews
(Haribo pay your PR agency!)
Note the insistence on keeping a 3star rating — so that amazon doesn’t pull the product (the product isn’t actually terrible, provided you don’t eat huge quantities at once).Report
At the risk of being troll-like, Gifts of Gab has stopped loading in both Firefox and Chrome on my Mac (still works on Safari).Report
The piece says, “Don’t feed the trolls”, but I’d add something.
If you have a banhammer, use it. The best method, especially for new identities, is to delete the comment, and then give an explanation why. Do not, however, be drawn into a debate. They sometimes will try. This will be the evidence that you needed to just ban them without comment.Report
Bring Back Knives!
If you let trolls be moderators, they’ll create methods so that someone can still think they’re posting to the right site, but in fact not be visible to anyone who is actually on the site. That makes them go away for good.Report
Personally, I believe that is ill-advised in most circumstances.
Unfortunately, I have more in thoughts than caring to express the matter in words.
I’ll let the statement stand as it is.Report
Will! Good to see you again, man!Report
I was wondering where he’d been just the other day.Report
Hey Will!Report
Hey, guys!
A little library time away from the library . . .Report
Most of the “trolls” I knew frequented a certain game community forum. They were, for the most part, kids. And by kids I mean below 25. That said, I did occasionally participate in being a troll. It was fun to push folks buttons on hot topics. Then the damn mods got involved 🙂Report