wintler2 wrote:...and wouldn't it be great to have a working definition of trolling.
The finest vintage trolling is virtually imperceptible, though. A master trollista will create a swirling gyre of havoc and distrust all around himself, appearing all the while as the only calm, responsible, clear-headed poster in the bunch. The trolls around here rarely display such skillz, as evidenced by the current
Concerning the Jews by Mark Twain aka Samuel Clemens thread, which is presented by chump as a "
jewel" (get it?) under the guise of promoting a serious discussion. This is a classic, if obvious, attempt to rile certain posters, who have thus far generously avoided taking the bait. In this manner, it constitutes a failed troll, although you can sort of discern the snickering of the original poster as he carefully cut and pasted away the introduction included in the unlinked-to posting on Truthseeker, written by Henry Makow:
(Editor's Note- People are individuals and should be judged as such, yet clearly the behavior of certain Jews taints all. I wish more Jews had the courage to speak up and condemn this behavior. There is no self reform without self criticism. Also, as you know, I believe this behavior (greed, social irresponsibility) now extends far beyond Jews. This extract from Twain's 1898 essay puts the current investigation into Wall Street practices in perspective.)
Trolling is really done just to stir shit for the sake of shit stirring. You can't really believe what you troll about, which is why 17breezes doesn't really qualify. He is obviously under the very real impression that Jews have to be watchful of anti-semitism, and there is some truth to that as we all are aware. And most of the time it doesn't seem as if he's even looking for a response, while for a true troll, the response is everything.
wintler2 wrote:I think repeatedly posting claims unsupported by any real evidence and not at least admitting when they are unsupported by evidence is trolling.
That's a pretty fine line in this particular venue. I mean, how many times have you posted some semi-rigorous point about an extremely marginal fringe topic
X, only to be followed up by the classic response of, "Yeah, you're probably right, but I still know that
X is true/false." Now that person may be trying to get your goat, or - hey, you know what? - maybe they really
were abducted by mantis-headed zenomorphs from a homemade crop circle, but they have little fallback beyond the truth of their own experience. Evidence around the topics we examine here can be scantier than Lady Gaga's thong, but that's what's so tantalizing about it all.