I´ll quit playing (internet) poker

[Sharkhunter2005]

Thanks for the suggestion, but as I otherwise surf only very safe sites, I´m quite sure that these attacks are connected to internet gambling, although they don´t necessarily have to come from the poker site.

Sharkhunter2005

[bandfan]

I'm quite sure you have no clue what you're talking about.

[iluzion]

[ QUOTE ]
Thanks for the suggestion, but as I otherwise surf only very safe sites, I´m quite sure that these attacks are connected to internet gambling, although they don´t necessarily have to come from the poker site.

Sharkhunter2005

[/ QUOTE ]

I'd bet money that says you use IE, don't have XP SP2, and don't run very regular GOOD spyware/adware programs. I say as well that you don't know what your talking about and are wrong. A degree in Natural Science doesn't mean you know computers at all.

[Jurollo]

Motivation of an Internet Troll

Most discussion of what motivates Internet trolls comes from other Internet users who claim to have observed trolling behavior. There is little scholarly literature to describe either the term or the phenomenon. The comments of accused trolls might be unreliable, since they may in fact be intending to stir controversy rather than to advance understanding of the phenomenon. Likewise, accusers are often motivated by a desire to defend a particular Internet project and references to an Internet user as a troll might not be based on the actual goals of the person so named. As a result, identifying the goals of Internet trolls is most often speculative. Still, several basic goals have been attributed to Internet trolls, according to the type of disruption they are believed to be provoking.

Proposed motivations for trolling:

* Anonymous attention-seeking: The troll seeks to dominate the thread by inciting anger, and effectively hijacking the topic at hand.
* Amusement: To some people, the thought of a person getting angry over statements from total strangers is entertaining.
* Cry for help: Many so-called trolls, in their postings, indicate disturbing situations regarding family, relationships, substances, and school--although it is impossible to know whether this is just simply part of the troll. Some believe that trolling is an aggressive, confrontational way by which trolls seek a sort of tough love guidance in an anonymous forum.
* Self-proclaimed trolls and their defenders suggest that trolling is a clever way of improving discussion, or an alternative method of viewing power relations on large public wikis.
* Wasting others' time: One of the greatest themes in trolling is the idea that you can spend one minute of your time posting a troll, causing 10 other people to waste ten minutes of their time, more or catalytically affecting lots of other people. Most trolls enjoy the idea that they wasted others time at comparatively little effort on their behalf.
* Domino effect: Related to amusement, but a more specific fashion: starting large chain reactions in response to one's initial post. Achieving a disproportionately large response to a small action is the general theme. This is similar to how a young child that goes missing (but is actually hiding) may act with glee, seeing a large number of people conducting a massive search in response to the supposed disappearance.
* Effect change in user opinions: A troll may state extreme positions to make his or her actual beliefs seem moderate (This often involves sock puppeteering, where the bad cop is a sock-puppet troll.) or, alternatively, play the role of Devil's advocate to strengthen opposing convictions [with which he or she usually actually agrees].
* Test the integrity of a system against social attacks or other forms of misbehavior: For example, blatantly violating terms-of-use in order to see whether any action is taken by the site administrators.
* Overcome feelings of inferiority or powerlessness by getting the experience of controlling an environment.
* Self-promotion
* Fight "groupthink": Many trolls defend their actions as, when a sort of conformism settles, shocking people out of it.
* Satire: In these cases, the individuals do not think of themselves as trolls, but misunderstood humorists or political commentators.
* Personal attacks against one particular user or group of users
* Lowering signal to noise ratio: On Slashdot, points that could be used to moderate interesting things up get wasted on moderating down things like ASCII pictures of the goatse man. This lowers the quality of comments at certain thresholds.
* It is possible that they are using the perceived anonymity of the Internet as a platform to test an alternate persona.
* In cases of small or relatively new forums, a troll might attempt to cause such a stir that the existing users are driven away until the forum is either empty or has lost a significant number of users.

It is difficult to gauge the motivations of trolls, since most of the justifications offered by alleged trolls for their behavior are nothing more than ruses concocted to continue whatever mischief they imagine themselves to have started. This is unfortunate because, as the above list supposes, there are legitimate reasons for engaging in the sort of actions for which trolling is known. Still, etiquette is simple and straightforward enough that most people can advance the aims professed by self-exculpatory trolls without actually resorting to these methods. Since there is a wide spectrum of possible motivations for trolls, some of these functions being benevolent and others, clearly malevolent, to typecast users as trolls in the negative sense is often rash.

Some users of Internet forums are considered to be "trollhunters", or "trollbaiters". They willingly enter conflict when trolls emerge. Often, trollhunters are as disruptive as trolls. A single troll-post may be ignored, but if ten trollhunters "pounce" following a troll, they will drive the thread offtopic.

Regarding troll-related conflicts, there are six groups into which users might be classified:

* Trolls are users who actively provoke conflict.
* Trollhunters (or Trollbaiters) behave according to a principle of "second strike". They do not initiate conflict, but escalate it once it begins. Often they use other trolls as an excuse for their own misbehavior, and in many cases, typecast a user as a "troll" regardless of his or her intent.
* Ignorers seek to ignore the conflict, continuing with the topic at-hand. They usually express a nonchalant disdain for the troll, but do not seek actively to insult him or her. They behave like elders, issuing simple words of wisdom such as "Do not feed the trolls." or other phrases that generally mean the same thing: "Ignore the troublemaker and he will give up and go away." (The phrase "Do Not Feed The Energy Creature" or "DNFTEC" may be used, referring to a Star Trek episode in which a creature deliberately caused antagonism in order to feed on the psychic energy released) This type of response could be taken as passive-aggressive Trollbaiter behavior.
* Moderators (not in the same sense as a "system moderator") seek to resolve the conflict, making all parties happy, if possible.
* Bystanders withdraw from the conflict. In particularly bad cases, they will leave the forum in disgust.
* Hijackers initiate an offtopic discussion in response to provocative posts by a troll.

In the attention-seeking cases, trolls seek the conflict provided by trollbaiters, whereas in the "cry for help" cases, they seek the consolance and compassion offered by moderators.

[Scratch]

[ QUOTE ]

I have a university degree in natural science...

[/ QUOTE ]

What the heck is "natural science"? Does that mean somewhere there's an "unnatural science"? Or is this more related to "scientology"? [img]/images/graemlins/shocked.gif[/img]

[ QUOTE ]
...think I have a leck of intelligence or skill...

[/ QUOTE ]

[img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[Sharkhunter2005]

natural science means rerum naturalis.

[fluff]

[ QUOTE ]
I have a university degree in natural science, don´t think I have a leck of intelligence or skill

[/ QUOTE ]

Despite clear evidence to the contrary?

[Sharkhunter2005]

Partially you won that bet but I run safety programs, therefore i say I´m under attack and don´t say that these attacks are succesful.

[Sharkhunter2005]

Perhaps not intelligent enough to play poker successfully, but maybe intelligent enough to quit, we´ll see.

But the thing is that my guard program indicates a worm attack and all over sudden 2-3 players are disconnected and out of the game.

[AcmeSalesRep]

[ QUOTE ]
But the thing is that my guard program indicates a worm attack and all over sudden 2-3 players are disconnected and out of the game.

[/ QUOTE ]

Maybe you should stop playing poker at Virus Emporium Casino...

Acme