Thursday, January 29, 2009

Trolls

I'm not talking about the storybook ones.


Wikipedia definition:

An Internet troll, or simply "troll" in Internet slang, is someone who posts controversial, inflammatory, irrelevant or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum or chat room, with the intention of provoking other users into an emotional response or to generally disrupt normal on-topic discussion.


This is a touchy subject in one of the online communities I am active in. Even saying someone is a troll (joking or not) can get you in a lot of trouble. Of course, this extreme repercussion for just uttering the word "troll" did not come as a shock...there was a lot of trolling going on in our group for quite some time. Some seemed to be people that didn't even belong in our group - some were active members posing as someone else to stir up some sort of controversy. Either way, it causes a lot of drama.


Here's the question that keeps bouncing around in my head: why would someone do something like this?

I just don't get it.

And as someone who doesn't like drama (in real life or online), I don't think I ever will.