Sunday, November 08, 2009

My First Troll Calling

A long ago, in a techie forum far, far away, was one very valiant techie helper. This helper, whom I will call "Steve", would write vague yet seemingly sincere technical advice, in a very incoherent and scattered format. But people in the forum put up with Steve, and even gave him props, because "Steve" was a recovering stroke victim.

"Steve" would write, periodically, in his broken style that "he" was recovering from a recent stroke, and would people cut him some slack, as "he" knew that "his" writing wasn't up to forum standards. And people would reply how brave he was.

One day, I was in an online chat with a casual acquaintance who was a doctor, and whose specialty was helping people recover from strokes. "Bill" was a nice guy, and I asked "Bill" if he could give "Steve" some advice. So "Bill" went into the forum, and chatted with "Steve". And "Bill" came back to the conversation with me, and the first thing that "Bill" said to me was
That's not a stroke victim.


His professional opinion was that "Steve" was pulling everybody's legs. "Steve" was a troll. And when "Bill" told "Steve", openly, that he was a liar, and he was only making fun of stroke victims, "Steve" simply stopped posting.

What "Bill" did was known, in The Troll Game, was "Call the troll". And since "Steve" was playing by the rules, he ceased posting.

For any real player, that's above "Beer and Puke" rank, that's all that you have to do.
Aditya / Bilal / Haseeb / I Will / Ice / Sooji,

Enough. I'm calling this troll, now, three times three.
Let's hope that "Haseeb" et al is well behaved, or eventually listens to everybody else in Blogger Help Forum, and takes a hike. I am now telling him three times three, to do so.

So here are 3 web pages about trolls.

And here's a link to my lighthearted fable about one type of troll. That fable is dedicated to Wasted, of long ago Blogger Help Group. And a second link, to my latest canonical definition, dedicated to Haseeb.

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