Let me offer the "4 fun ppl theory", which explains the widespread horrible behavior and the recent research:
Those we consider trolls are people with honest intention to positively socialize, but their extremely low social skills cause them to post hurtful or annoying things instead.
My formula is "basement dweller + audience + lack of clear rules or authority = total f..wad".
In some ways it is both a narrowing and a broadening of the GIFT formula.
In my opinion, this is the most interesting thing that Gevlon has ever written. It's unfortunate that it's posted to a small MMO blog. It deserves a wider audience than will read it.
Heh, the part I find most interesting is that Gevlon is famous for his "no-holds-barred" approach to "Morons and Slackers". Yet his diagnosis is almost charitable. A muscular charity, though, to be certain, with a hard-nosed approach to solutions.
Agreed.
ReplyDeleteI thought of the recent nuclear holocaust created by Anita Sarkeesian's latest tropes' video when I read Gevlon's post. The people who might wish to engage in real debate and criticism of her work are drowned out and washed away by the tsunami of trolls and idiots and worse.
Ahem, and this is new in what exactly? I mean, the entire current human civilization exists exactly because of rules and people enforcing them (google around for what happens when the police goes on strike), so how is this new when it occurs in the internet medium?
ReplyDeleteThe linked research (2nd one) is interesting, it would be nice to see a major MMO attempting such a system on their forums to see the "real world" impact of such a "rethink" system.
Not sure I buy Gevlon's theory. The guy with no social skills will sometimes say inappropriate things because they don't know what's acceptable and what isn't - the idiots in general chat tend to say nothing but inappropriate things. Their hit rate is too high for them to be offending by accident, they're deliberately trying to get a rise out of people. And that's the textbook definition of trolling.
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