Schizophrenic Trolls

The "objective", if there is one, of trolling is to argue, and to generate useless forum traffic. In other words, to make a nuisance of oneself. Trolls of skill can argue with regular members of any given forum, so deviously, that the real forum members have no idea that a troll is operating.

The "beer and puke" rank trolls know that they haven't enough technique to argue with a forum regular about anything that is of interest or relevance in the forum. In a techie forum, like Blogger Help, the subjects of discussion are technical. The trolls that want to operate there realise that they will be at a disadvantage, because they don't understand the issues there. So, they make up subjects to argue about.

One favourite subject of a "beer and puke" troll is to argue that the other trolls are picking on him.

I'm not doing anything wrong - the other guy is doing it!

Sometime ago, we had a "beer and puke" troll calling itself "Sooji". Sooji has spent a lot of time concocting external "evidence" that it exists. It has a blog, YouTube content, and supposedly membership in other forums. And, it posts in Blogger Help, periodically, waving its arms around screaming about impersonators, pedophiles, and stalkers. And, as soon as we see its screaming, we delete the screaming. And periodically, we delete the accounts that it uses, to post the screams.

Go away, Sooji.

I Tell You Three Times

The number three ("3") has had special significance to mankind, for a long time.

Mainstream Christian religion observes the number three as the Trinity. The Father, The Son, and The Holy Ghost are specific objects in Christian religion.

The famous English logician, mathematician, and novelist Lewis Carroll is known for having told us

What I tell you three times is true.

One of my favourite science fiction authors, Robert Heinlein, referenced both Christian religion and Lewis Carroll, in his novel, The Number Of The Beast.

a neg scrub tells her to place item in perms three places. Redundancy safety factor.

In American sports, the game of baseball gives a player 3 specific chances to perform in an offensive role

Three strikes, and you're out.

before giving way to the next player, and the offensive team has 3 specific chances to perform

Three outs in an inning.

before changing places with the other team, and becoming the defensive team.

When dealing with trolls and other disruptive characters, telling them 3 times is again, a form of saying

Listen to me very carefully, because what you hear may affect your future.

It's an attention getter, similar to use of the legendary "Clue by four".

In especially difficult situations, we might triple the effect, by telling not three times, but three times three times. This may be necessary in extreme circumstances.

Joshua,

Please, go away.

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.

• NYTimes: The Trolls Among Us
• SearchLores: Trolls
• Urban75: Trolling The Net

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.