Atrribution Theory

"The core group will tend to believe that they decide what is and isn't acceptable behavior because they post the most. They tend to feel a kind of ownership. The problem is that people are naturally reactive. So as trolls come and go, especially when there is a rise in them, the regulars will tend to demand and implement an increasingly more confined set of behaviors that they will tolerate.



This in turn creates more trolls which in turn calls more reaction until eventually the message board ends up basically an ugly, narrow minded, quasi-fascist message board where the regulars run out everyone who isn't behaving exactly as they should (in their minds).



We're seeing that here unfortunately. An increasing tendancy of the regulars (moderators included) to narrowly define what is acceptable behavior and taking very strong action on those who they feel fall outside those boundaries. This incites bordlerine people to enter the realm of the troll."


I agree with this completely. I can understand why some borderline people become trolls. I was one of those borderline people. I sympathize with those that feel provoked to retaliate and have not thought that maybe it would be better to contact some admins and resolve their differences with the site diplomatically.

Didn't we have a whole thread on this before? called "Troll 101" ? I came up with troll 500 but we won't go there.

What? Mishaps? And I haven't even been around lately!

basic strategy is easy: ignore everyone angling for a response (except me).

> > >

so thats why people are ignoring me

Hmm, I thought I heard something. Must've been the wind.

whoooosh

so we should have troll practice week or something?

also remeber I made a thread about Message Board Time? well now I have a new theory called Message Board History.

If its a really old thread noone remembers it.


Also, what Frogboy said about the board also holds true with other situations about human axctivity and how reactions can cause more unwanted conter reactions and soon it becomes an ungly place.

we have to take a stand and try our best not to jump on people and cause a ruckus when there is really no need.

"Also, what Frogboy said about the board also holds true with other situations about human axctivity and how reactions can cause more unwanted conter reactions and soon it becomes an ungly place.

we have to take a stand and try our best not to jump on people and cause a ruckus when there is really no need."

Amen to that. I wish more people here could recognize how certain actions only leads to more unwanted reactions.

I think the definition of a troll is this:

Troll: Someone disruptive to the general environment of the messageboards, taking and giving offense at the slightest thing. The trolls occasionally make the error of talking in all CAPS. They also have been known to carry on grudges. For a long time.

Am I right?

A real troll is someone who is out to get people upset just for the fun of getting people upset. I find the term "troll" gets thrown around to loosely around here.

Why do we need to call people "Trolls"?  Why the continued name calling.  Why can't they just be people with a different opinion?

It's amazing at how many people wait to jump all over people who chime in with an opinion that is different than their own.  In my opinion, the people who start jumping all over "people with a different opinion" are doing a much worse diservice to the site than the "people with a different opinion" are doing.  That's actually more disruptive to the general enviroment of the messageboards and quite often their posts are offensive.

Yeah your right. But it does fit about 1% of the people here as was said earlier.

Good one T-Man, let's stop name calling or labelling people.