From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Sat Aug 17 2002 - 09:30:13 MDT
Harvey writes
> Lee Corbin wrote:
> > I know of no cases of trolling on extropians.
>
> Nice try. You are trolling about trolling in the
> meta trolling thread. We get it.
That's quite funny. Neat idea, but as several of us have
said, it would be quite out of place on this forum.
> You can stop repeating this claim, and stop your direct
> requests for people to respond.
I am enormously serious in my claim. But after reading
your very cynical rejoinder, I spent several minutes
trying to think of anyone who (it seems to me) has
trolled this list. Finally it occurred to me that there
was one guy (name of "Fox" or something like that?) who
was on the list in March-May of 2001 or so. This guy's
post's consisted of only one liners which, after reading
them for a few weeks, didn't seem to reflect any serious
view or personality behind it (unlike our own masters of
the riposte :-)
I stopped reading his posts, while at the same time noting
that some were accusing him of *trolling*. Ultimately I
don't think that even he was a true troll; I conclude
that he was someone who simply didn't know how to carry
on a genuine on-line discussion (or didn't have any interest
in doing so). Instead he was like one of these people at a
party (which I surmise) don't really have anything to say,
but are interested in getting the feel of participating in
a conversation, and just say things to provoke responses.
But besides him? No. I can't think of anyone. This is
why I seriously repeat my request (which has been ignored
twice now by various people): about how many time a year
would one guess that trolling occurs here?
After all, we might have differing meanings of the term!
To me, trolling is the (despicable) art of inciting an
argument (a) using statements you don't believe for
a moment and (b) that you consider a big joke, especially
when the participants start tearing away at each other
while you sit back laughing.
Of course, that's the extreme. But some elements of (a)
and (b) must be present if the word means at all what I
think it does.
Lee
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