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Imperial Forum → Ideas → Trolling thread
How about a thread specifically for trolling? Since its clear people will troll and that punishment for trolling can't really be enforced, there should be a special thread for it. Now, of course, since trolling is only possible in a context where there should be question as to whether or not the topic of conversation is trolling or not, maybe the thread could be called "The official is it trolling or is it not trolling" thread...
I do not understand the purpose of a designated trolling thread. Isn't that what 75% of "general" forum is?
Even if someone trolling would participate, that would defeat the very purpose of trolling, so the people who actually are trolling would have no use for it.
*suggests you review your urban dictionary definition again*
> Zarf BeebleBrix wrote:
> Even if someone trolling would participate, that would defeat the very purpose of trolling, so the people who actually are trolling would have no use for it.
*suggests you review your urban dictionary definition again*
No no... It could work. It's like this:
The purpose of the thread is to provide a place for members who try and troll / counter troll and for members want to be entertained by watching troll-fests. Now, to mix it up a bit, of course, posters would have to post stuff that is not trolling, too, of course, else what you are suggesting, Zarf, would be true. So it would be in the trollers' best interest to post stuff which is not trolling, at least from time to time, hence the title: "Is it trolling or not trolling". Members who would read the thread would cast their judgements. Moderators could allot points to trollers who successfully trolled people (double points if they successfully counter-troll someone).
> Arby3 wrote:
> I do not understand the purpose of a designated trolling thread. Isn't that what 75% of "general" forum is?
As Arby says, there's a lot of trolling all over the place. If it were an official thread, then, a special place for trolling, this would lessen the amount of trolling going on in other threads. You know, kind of like the same theory behind creating a special wall in a city center for people to do graffiti - not as fun, perhaps, as doing graffiti where you aren't supposed to, but it is still fun enough for most would-be trollers, at least for a short time until its novelty wears off. Who knows, though, it might catch on and so it could be effective in diminishing the amount of graffiti in the city overall. Why not give it a try, I mean, all it is is one wall, or in our case, one thread...
Hmm...but, you're missing the point. You cannot troll those who expect it. That's undermining the purpose.
No, I am understanding the point. You're missing mine: if the purpose of the troll trolls only SOMETIMES and post non-trolling stuff SOMETIMES, you maintain the doubt as to whether or not any particular post is trolling or not.
It's like a graffiti wall where people take a look and are not sure whether it is art or not because the gang-member graffiti artist has stepped up the quality of his graffiti so that it comes across as art and is able to hide his gang's tag within the art. To do so, he's had to even create some authentic artistic imagery from time to time on the wall.
Same with the trolling thread: trolls will endeavor to produce posts that are NOT trolling so that when they DO troll, they can maintain doubt in their audience as to whether or not they are trolling in any particular case...
So how does that exist in relation to everything else in the forum? The forum you would create is essentially a forum for everything that is either:
A: Trolling
B: Not trolling
Guess what: That covers every thread in IC? So... are the mods supposed to move non-trolling threads to real forums? Or are they supposed to allow any sort of thread in the troll forums, which isn't too different from just not having subforums.
Moreover, your idea requires a stream of legitimate threads to be thrown into there with the crap threads. So what happens when people who want to legitimately talk about issues wanes? After all, if I actually want to talk about nuclear weapons policy, posting a legit thread in the troll thread isn't a good idea, so I have an incentive to put stuff in the legit thread. Then the forum becomes a trolls-only forum. Unless... the mods begin arbitrarily putting legit threads into the troll thread to maintain the illusion of legitimacy you want to establish for the sake of trolling, which only hurts the good threads.
> Arby3 wrote:
> I do not understand the purpose of a designated trolling thread. Isn't that what 75% of "general" forum is?
I thought that was the political forum? Meh
Well, that too...
First, not all trolling is political in nature.
Second, Zarf, if you provide a venue for trolling by having a special trolling thread, there'll be less trolling elsewhere in the forum.
Third, it's not true that troll threads are, as you put it, 'crap threads'. Sometimes, they can be quite entertaining and educational.
It can be just another general thread, only where trolling is not only condoned, but even celebrated.
I agree, there are a few select people that get trolled, I am one of them. I have the skills to deal with it as do the other targeted players. I think that it's the people who try and do the right thing and play as fair as possible get trolled and then feel bad about something said about them.
I think there is enough trolling going on in chat (#mod) which is enough i think 
..
Trolling wouldn't be trolling if you made a game about it where people would guess which story is true and which isn't 
@xeno
So... are you... not going to answer my issues there?
I believe I answered them all... trolling me top repeat myself, maybe? let me check if I missed something...
> Zarf uttered:
> So... are the mods supposed to move non-trolling threads to real forums?
No. They can keep the non-trolling threads in the trolling forum.
> Or are they supposed to allow any sort of thread in the troll forums, which isn't too different from just not having subforums.
As I said, it can be like an additional general forum.
>Moreover, your idea requires a stream of legitimate threads to be thrown into there with the crap threads. So what happens when people who want to legitimately talk about issues wanes?
I don't think people would ever stop 'legitimately' talking about issues and leave only trolling, because they need to talk lagitimately. I don't think people who want to discuss things legitimately would stop going to the thread, either, because they would also happen to be entertained quite a lot by the trolling going on...
> After all, if I actually want to talk about nuclear weapons policy, posting a legit thread in the troll thread isn't a good idea, so I have an incentive to put stuff in the legit thread. Then the forum becomes a trolls-only forum.
Say they are discussing nuclear weapons policy in troll forum, and it is not a topic in any other forum on IC, people who want to discuss it will do so, except they'll be more wary of getting trolled. During the discussion, one poster trolls another in their debate over the issue, trolls the poster about something that is totally off topic. In this forum, it would be tolerated, and people still attend the forum because they aren't only there to discuss topics, but also to be entertained by trolling.
> Unless... the mods begin arbitrarily putting legit threads into the troll thread to maintain the illusion of legitimacy you want to establish for the sake of trolling, which only hurts the good threads."
I don't think it would be necessary for anyone to arbitrarily putting legit threads in a troll thread to maintain the illusion of legitimacy of the troll forum. Besides, wouldn't those threads be troll threads, because they aren't putting the threads in there to have honest discussion, but just to provide the false sense of legitimacy of the threads in the troll forum.
Also, I don't see how it hurts the good threads if people honestly discuss legitimate topics in troll forum.
All I would like to see is a venue to provide for more colorful, more entertaining general discussions.
I mean you should like this idea, Zarf, because if you had this troll / spam / flame fest forum, mods could move threads there that had trolling and flaming going on instead of deleting them. This way discussions could keep on going and nobody's free speech would be violated. And the rest of the forum could be kept clean.
> xeno syndicated wrote:
> I believe I answered them all... trolling me top repeat myself, maybe? let me check if I missed something...
Yeah... not even close. Notice the pile of extrapolation which you did in that most recent post... but not in the one prior?
>Moreover, your idea requires a stream of legitimate threads to be thrown into there with the crap threads. So what happens when people who want to legitimately talk about issues wanes?
I don't think people would ever stop 'legitimately' talking about issues and leave only trolling, because they need to talk lagitimately. I don't think people who want to discuss things legitimately would stop going to the thread, either, because they would also happen to be entertained quite a lot by the trolling going on...
You're missing the point. I'm not saying legitimate discussion would nver occur. However, if I want to actually have a legitimate discussion... there is no reason why I would say "Hey, I got a great idea! I'll post this thread in which I actually want to debate legitimate issues in the forum where there is a 50% chance it will be interpreted as trolling and ignored!" No, I would post my legitimate thread in politics, uni news, or wherever else it goes, where it would have credibility as a legitimate thread from the start. Then you end up having a void of legitimate topics in the troll forum in the first place. That means the troll forum becomes a pure troll forum because there are no legitimate threads, and the legitimacy of your whole "is it trolling or is it not trolling" farce is gone because legitimate threads would go where legitimate threads would be in the first place.
> Unless... the mods begin arbitrarily putting legit threads into the troll thread to maintain the illusion of legitimacy you want to establish for the sake of trolling, which only hurts the good threads."
I don't think it would be necessary for anyone to arbitrarily putting legit threads in a troll thread to maintain the illusion of legitimacy of the troll forum.
Um... why? Note the reasoning above. You can't just say "naaaaah..."
> Besides, wouldn't those threads be troll threads, because they aren't putting the threads in there to have honest discussion, but just to provide the false sense of legitimacy of the threads in the troll forum.
Yes... exactly... because the threads weren't intended as such in the first place.
Your idea is 100% parasitic in that for the troll threads to exist in a form which allows trolling, you require legitimate threads within which the troll threads can hide. However, legitimate posters don't actually want their threads considered troll threads because that means other people start shunning their forum posts.
> Also, I don't see how it hurts the good threads if people honestly discuss legitimate topics in troll forum.
It hurts legitimate topic discussion because if I want to debate US extended deterrence policy, I generally want to hear people talk about whether Japan or Israel legitimately need US nuclear protection, not "we don't need to protect them with nukes... we've got Chuck Norris," followed by a discussion of whether Chuck Norris should be used for pure deterrence or preemptive warfare. This shouldn't be hard to explain, and considering how many times you have complained about this exact problem in the politics forum, I'm surprised you don't see the problem.
You can make it a place where you can dump any questionable thread anywhere in the forum. And members of the community can go there and vote on each post in the thread (if possible maybe by clicking on one of three icons) whether it is a) trolling b) spam c) flaming. Then, the thread starter and / or posters could be attributed positive (for successful, cool, artistic trolling) or negative tag points for failed or unwarranted trolling / spamming / flaming.
"You can make it a place where you can dump any questionable thread anywhere in the forum. And members of the community can go there and vote on each post in the thread (if possible maybe by clicking on one of three icons) whether it is a) trolling b) spam c) flaming. Then, the thread starter and / or posters could be attributed positive (for successful, cool, artistic trolling) or negative tag points for failed or unwarranted trolling / spamming / flaming."
"I mean you should like this idea, Zarf, because if you had this troll / spam / flame fest forum, mods could move threads there that had trolling and flaming going on instead of deleting them. This way discussions could keep on going and nobody's free speech would be violated. And the rest of the forum could be kept clean."
Can you respond to these my two most recent posts?
Zarf, you'll be placing threads which may be legitimate attempts at honest discussion in this forum, threads mods suspect may be either trolling, spam, or flaming. Inevitably, there will be legitimate threads there, too.
Based on community members' voting, you might even move the thread back to its original location if it is deemed NOT to be either trolling, flaming, or spam by the community.
Called the forum something like 'Zarf's Court'. Subforums might be, the "Jury Box" - a thread where only select members of the jury can discuss the fate of the forum poster in question. Or, "The Hot Seat"- an interrogation room where the poster is limited to discussing things only with mods and is temporarily banned from discussing anywhere else. Or the 'Prison' in which this is the only place convicted posters are permitted to post anything. They can flam, troll, and spam to their heart's content here, but only with each other. Or the "Jail", where posters who are currently on trial are allowed to post stuff and maybe put forth their case for why what they posted wasn't trolling, spam, or flaming.
Also, there should be places to move the threads in question for the trial. Maybe the "Evidence Room", where the original threads in question are temporarily placed until trial is over. Other posters who are not on trial can continue the discussions they were having. Threads could be placed here even if no one is yet on tril for any infraction and posters who know that the thread has been moved to 'Zarf's Court's Evidence Room" know that posters of that thread are on notice and that all of their fates are being discussed by the community members / mods. Meanwhile, the community at large can provide their input by voting on each post themselves as being either spam, flaming, or trolling...
> xeno syndicated wrote:
> "You can make it a place where you can dump any questionable thread anywhere in the forum. And members of the community can go there and vote on each post in the thread (if possible maybe by clicking on one of three icons) whether it is a) trolling b) spam c) flaming. Then, the thread starter and / or posters could be attributed positive (for successful, cool, artistic trolling) or negative tag points for failed or unwarranted trolling / spamming / flaming."
That brings us to the first question: why is trolling good? No, I'm not asking you "why should we tolerate trolling." You are specifically devising a system to reward certain types of trolling, above and beyond what is given for "good" versions of legitimate posts. If your intent is to reward trolling more than you reward legitimate posts, you have to say why trolling is better than legitimate discussion. If that's not your intent, I suggest you open up a new discussion entirely on why some sort of voting system on forum posts should exist, because the voting system would then in no way be required as part of the trolling forum, and you're just tacking ideas onto it.
> "I mean you should like this idea, Zarf, because if you had this troll / spam / flame fest forum, mods could move threads there that had trolling and flaming going on instead of deleting them. This way discussions could keep on going and nobody's free speech would be violated. And the rest of the forum could be kept clean."
But what if it's my opinion that trolling is inherently bad? What if I think that we should discourage trolling because it
You don't reply to a murderer by sending him to another country where he can murder at will, as long as he doesn't murder people you care about. There's still something inherently wrong with the act of trolling which needs to be discouraged. Under your interpretation, trolling would still be prevalent now because the moderator response to people trolling in a legitimate thread... would simply be to move the post from the place where it did its harm to a place where we can vote about whether we liked the harm it was done. So I ask again... why is it good for someone to 100% derail your legitimate topics? Why should we be voting on how effectively some random poster derailed your topics?
> xeno syndicated wrote:
> Zarf, you'll be placing threads which may be legitimate attempts at honest discussion in this forum, threads mods suspect may be either trolling, spam, or flaming. Inevitably, there will be legitimate threads there, too.
Based on community members' voting, you might even move the thread back to its original location if it is deemed NOT to be either trolling, flaming, or spam by the community.
Called the forum something like 'Zarf's Court'. Subforums might be, the "Jury Box" - a thread where only select members of the jury can discuss the fate of the forum poster in question. Or, "The Hot Seat", the 'prison' in which, temporarily, would be the only place on the forum where the suspect poster can post until his trial is over.
You do realize that if this was the case, you would have pretty much been voted out of the politics forum, right?
"You do realize that if this was the case, you would have pretty much been voted out of the politics forum, right? "
Actually, Zarf, you have no way of knowing this, and you might actually be very surprised if in fact a vote had occurred.
Please read my post again, I have since edited it.
Imperial Forum → Ideas → Trolling thread
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