Philosophy Now Forum

Ok well I am noted as being anti troll with my I am against the children thread some may have seen but more likely ignored 'cause let's face it trolling is crap; but it's often hard to detect one and the term is of course thrown about so often now, that you don't always know if someone was sincere or not, but let me say the troll is not sincere it is the defining character of it. A troll is a person who deliberately sets out to inflame people, not someone who earnestly argues a point no matter how ridiculous it is. So the term depends on the persons belief in its veracity not in the persons desire to annoy you or anyone else. This I think can be agreed to.

Spam also troubles me, it is unsolicited posting on threads or forum areas that merely clutter up the forum so that it can make some threads either hard to follow or go off on tangents, and also posting threads that have no reason to be in that area. Spam is not for example posting a thread about symbology and then only posting symbology, that is of course what the thread is about so if you don't like that sort of dialogue don't read it; it is not posting on a chat/lounge or general area that has no overall topic about any topic you like.

But it seems these terms have become something they are not. it annoys me these terms are thrown around willy nilly now by people who are annoyed, not those that are annoyed for no reason, those who are annoyed because the subject is just annoying. So I would like to take back the definitions of these terms so that they can still be something that means anything and not some broad church of annoyance by people who don't like certain things.

So my question is do you agree or not, and what other words have been co-opted wrongly by people? Not saying words meanings should not change but they don't change over night on a whim of a poster.

Talking about pots and glasshouses.

Still, I'll ask again, how can you have a 'troll' in a philosophy forum?

To me Spam is promoting or selling a product or service that is not related to the thread.

Trolling is picking a fight with an abusive or hostile post that is not related to the thread topic but more to the individual poster.

Are these definitions suitable, or do they need to be amended?

You make a lot of sense a lot of the time and then it all goes awol for some reason.

Actually, according to the original coin of the term, it is in fact, one that surfs from forum to forum, originally news group to news group, to incite turmoil, for it's sake alone. A good troll can only be caught if someone catches the fact that he's cast his line far and wide, many forums/news groups, to ensure a biting fish is snagged, as they feed upon argument, regardless of that which is being argued.

They 'seemingly' live for argument alone, 'presumably' not caring about the actual subject matter, at least as to the original coin, that is what was 'meant' by the term. It was a fishing analogy, to troll.

vegetariantaxidermy wrote:You make a lot of sense a lot of the time and then it all goes awol for some reason.

Are you referring to me or doc?

Blaggard wrote:

vegetariantaxidermy wrote:You make a lot of sense a lot of the time and then it all goes awol for some reason.

Are you referring to me or doc?

You my friend, because you are about the only person on here who makes much sense to me. Perhaps we share the same madness?

Or perhaps we are the only people on here who are sane? :O

Blaggard wrote:Or perhaps we are the only people on here who are sane? :O

Sanity is much over-rated, crazy is much more fun.