Trolls and Trolling

[Andrea J.]

just a refersher
Trolls and Trolling
Trolls are not welcome and will be banned. An Internet "troll" is a person who delights in sowing discord on the Internet. They try to start arguments and upset people. Trolls see Internet communications services as convenient venues for their bizarre game. For some reason, they don’t "get" that they are hurting real people. To them, other Internet users are not quite human but are a kind of digital abstraction. Indeed, the greater the suffering they cause, the greater their "achievement" (as they see it). The anonymity of the net allows trolls to flourish. They are easily identified by the fact that they are constantly at odds with other members of the forum, and often "poke fun" at individuals they have disagreed with in the past, trying to provoke a reaction. Finally, trolls create a paranoid environment, such that a casual criticism by a new arrival can elicit a ferocious and inappropriate backlash. When you try to reason with a troll, he wins. When you insult a troll, he wins. When you scream at a troll, he wins. The only thing that trolls can’t handle is being ignored. Again we will ban anyone who practices "Trolling".