Trolls

sarah: yes, it is in the mail already. look for it sometime next week? if you want, i shall post the track listing to ile. (i don't from transatlantic mail times.)

gareth: if the vote of the whole house is against me, yes.

tom: fnar.

For me it's unhealthy to get too enmeshed with ILX, as I'd get nowt done, and worry about stuff that i can't do anything about. I haven't really noticed any trolls except obvious crackpot , but I only read 1 in 5 threads anyway.

I'm making a conscious to decision to post less and not worry about *keeping up*, whilst (despite shoddy non-appearence this week) going to more ILX piss-ups. People and beer are better than poxy message boards.

My moneys on old Mr Ewing who hangs around the abandoned greenspun server.

Sorry, lame but irresistible.

Just to clarify that I'm *not* a troll I am the poster formerly known as Samantha, duh. During a ILE IM chat I latched on to the idea of just calling myself by a letter, ala Mr. Dastoor. I thought it was fancy.

FWIW, Nicole does have a point...

i dont think i've ever been impersonated on ilx (negatively). i've been impersonated on usenet, however.

and some TROLL on ilm seems to think i'm schizophrenic anyway.

No you dignified it with two HA HA HA HA oh my sides can i go home yet.

creepy
isis stuff aside, wager this kind of thing (trolling political impersonations, sockpuppetry) not uncommon, in less extreme forms prob rife online

This is some weird shit: it's a conversation between a renowned internet troll and an FBI informant, neither knowing who the other really is and each working angles to try to get the other to do something, without either one ever realizing the other is playing a really different game.

surreal; there’s some black comedy to this
also some difficult legal questions
obv diff situation but a few strands of analogy to case of gf exhorting bf to suicide via texts

tanya headon one minute, tanya cohen the next

from past experience in the early internet days with trolling types,

the multi-angle trolling is really an artifact of an inability to socialize with others, on or off the internet. strong "non-partisan" ideology, claiming that "free speech" trumps all and that trolling somehow pushes out the borders of free speech to ensure even the most fringe positions are ok quickly becomes a struggle to circle the drain with all the muck without falling in

there's a complete lack of empathy or understanding of world events. things in the news, like attacks and cultural battles are still seen as important (although probably the troll denies their importance) not because of lives or actual stances but due to attention. through escalation and publicity the troll feels important.

there are definitely some pathological issues to that mindset, but at its base it's a feeling that a diminished feeling of self-worth isn't a problem, it's everyone else's problem. everyone should have a low sense of self-worth, and highlighting how trivially people who are doing things in the real world are manipulated is some sort of proof.

short version: this dude didn't circle the drain, he fell in, and someone needs to hit the garbage disposal

i suppose trolls can have all sorts of motives. the ones I've seen lately are just masochistic and I never considered self-worth in that equation

all sorts of "don't post pictures of yourself doing things I want to do, don't talk about activities I loathe (but really want to participate in)"

this is really good
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=toap7iPpTbs

agreed

curious if anyone else has ever noticed a pattern of one troll camping out at a site for years on end (besides me ha ha). there's a dude at 'new york' magazine who derails almost every discussion of jonathan chait's blog posts i've seen whenever i'm bored enough to venture below, and check out the comment section. however paranoid it sounds i can't help wondering how many (if any) perpetual trolls are paid moderators on big and big-ish media sites, baiting traffic?

there's more than a few here of course.

def want to watch a 13 minute video on trolls

it's not what you think it is whiney