[Myrtle]

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Ah, trolling, a fishing term for the internet. On message boards, such as 2+2, when a poster has no intention of starting a real discussion or honestly contributing something but posts strictly in order to generate responses (the more, the merrier), that poster is a troll. He's like a fisherman trailing a baited line from behind his boat.

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This definition most closely approaches mine. The object it to get as many strikes as possible in order to catch as many fish as possible. What the fisherman does with the fish once he catches them, however, is an entirely different story. He may throw them all back in the water, as his ultimate goal is simply the ‘sport’ of the battle, or he may keep them all, as his goal may be to stock his food larder.

The point here is that there is a difference between the action (trolling) and the intention (what to do with the fish once they’ve been caught). To combine the terms to infer a singular meaning is most often inaccurate and misleading

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Do not confuse with flaming, though. A poster is flaming when he starts insults or personal attacks which cause the whole thread/message board to degenerate into a flame war (=the trading of insults and personal attacks between a number of posters).

A poster can start a trolling thread without any flames (personal attacks).

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Again...agreed, if what you’re saying is that a ‘trolling’ thread can be a thread that simply asks a question. The problem arises when the question (or statement that may be made that accompanies the question) is controversial. Controversy, by its’ intrinsic nature sparks ‘flaming’. Flaming, in and by itself, may, or may not, be appropriate. There is a difference between discussing a strong conviction with passion, versus plain emotional venting. That difference is subject to interpretation, and it is my opinion that many cannot differentiate the two, and end up lumping them into the same category, which leads to much confusion. This goes directly to the issue of ‘paying more attention to the personality or style of the messenger, than the message that is being conveyed.

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For example, a poster can start a thread proclaiming the many benefits of using the Martingale to beat roulette. Since we assume that the people who frequent 2+2 know better, we can safely assume that such a poster is probably trolling.

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Yup.....but it is hard not to get stuck on the word “assume”, because that is where the danger lies. In your Martingale example, ‘assuming’ infers that one is completely abreast of the analysis of the Martingale System. What do you do with the person who has used it, doesn’t really understand it, but has had a short run of success with it, and therefore innocently believes that it a viable strategy to beat the table?

As Strother Martin said to Paul Newman in ‘Cool Hand Luke’.......”What we have here is a failure to communicate”.

So who is making the bigger mistake? The poster who believes that his conviction is accurate or the reader who knows better, and forms an opinion that the poster is an idiot?

It all goes to subjective interpretation, which is a communications issue, which is a subject that I believe many of us do not do very well with.

There’s simply too much ‘assuming’ going on, without a reasonable amount of ‘explaining’ to support it.


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But, sometimes, the reader of a post cannot immediately understand its true meaning, mistaking it for trolling. And he accuses the original poster of being a troll. This situation is called a gin blossom.

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As I am evidently not one of the cognoscenti, I'll need your exposition on the 'gin blossom' concept.....