On Sun, 14 May 2000, Subash wrote:
>on sunday, may 14, suresh ramasubramanian wrote:
>
>> Ah, how lovely!!!! Our list has got its own resident troll.
>
>and i could tell suresh to go read so-and-so's critique of
>Tolkien that exposes how social and cultural prejudices go
>From the Jargon file 4.2.0 ( http://www.jargon.org ):
troll v.,n.
1. [From the Usenet group alt.folklore.urban] To utter a posting on Usenet
designed to attract predictable responses or flames; or, the post itself.
Derives from the phrase "trolling for newbies" which in turn comes from
mainstream "trolling", a style of fishing in which one trails bait through a
likely spot hoping for a bite. The well-constructed troll is a post that
induces lots of newbies and flamers to make themselves look even more
clueless than they already do, while subtly conveying to the more savvy and
experienced that it is in fact a deliberate troll. If you don't fall for the
joke, you get to be in on it.
2. An individual who chronically trolls in sense 1; regularly posts specious
arguments, flames or personal attacks to a newsgroup, discussion list, or in
email for no other purpose than to annoy someone or disrupt a discussion.
Trolls are recognizable by the fact that the have no real interest in learning
about the topic at hand - they simply want to utter flame bait. Like the ugly
creatures they are named after, they exhibit no redeeming characteristics, and
as such, they are recognized as a lower form of life on the net, as in, "Oh,
ignore him, he's just a troll."
Hope this helps.
Devdas Bhagat
--
I predict that today will be remembered until tomorrow!
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