Come on out from under the bridge...

[Don Corleone]

Okay, deep inside every backroom regular, there lives a troll. For some of us, it's a momentary surrender to temptation that is quickly recognized and returned to the dark recesses until another 'jailbreak' . For others of us, the troll comes out all too often (in fact, there's a few of us that have given the troll the keys).



I'm glad you asked... So this thread is all about celebrating the inner troll, yours, mine and everyone elses. Post some of your favorite trolls (ones you've rolled out, ones you've seen go by). Post some of your least favorites. Post some of the ones you know you're prone to falling victim to.

Maybe, we might all just learn a thing or two about our inner trolls and how better to control them.

I'll go first. One of my worst troll moments relates to the 'cultural war' on Christianity. It's not a true troll, because I know it is true, but to a more limited stance then my threads would let on. But every year, , I start a thread about the war on Christmas. And every year, like a very special Christmas present from one of my better friends in these parts, Goofy comes in and blows a fuse over how "I'm taking it out of context, and it's not Christmas or religion that's being restrained, but prostelyzing". Thank you old friend, it warms the heart, like a cookie exchange for the holidays.

Ones I'm prone too? Whenever somebody's bored and decides to post a thread about how 9/11 was really perpetrated by Mossad and the CIA, to jack up the price of oil for Bush and his oilman buddies. Get's me every time.

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

I try not to troll. In fact, I try not to post in such a way as to draw debate as often as possible. However, there are a few kinds of threads that I will react to, and usually harshly - threads on Dresden, Soviet war crimes, and the European Union.

What I perceive as a misconception about or an insult towards my country I will also react quickly to. I try to be civil in my first post in the thread, but if a debate ensues, I tend to be a little harsh sometimes. Also, I can be rather defensive of my own religion - I don't promote it, I may mention that I am Catholic once in a while, and I hate when atheists or those of other religions try to bull their religions (or lack of the above) through. I respect yours - respect mine. Fortunately, there are usually others who I can leave the debate to in that scenario.

[seireikhaan]

Well, I tend to avoid trolling as well, but a few things just irk me a bit too mightily.

1) People assuming that they're religion is automatically better than everyone else's and can never for the life of them figure out why someone might believe something differerent than they do.(Coincidentally, this had resulted in me trolling some of my classmates at my Catholic High School).

2) People who claim to be pro-life but only concern themselves with abortion.(Coincidentally, this has resulted in me trolling some of my classmates at my Catholic High School).

3) People who make huge, sweeping, blanket statements about other people's, cultures which they really have no clue about.(Coincidentally, this has resulted in me trolling some of my classmates at my Catholic High School)

4) Religious hypocrites who love to tell everybody about how awesomely great, devoted, serving, and MODEST they are.(Coincidentally, this has resulted in me trolling some of my classmates at my Catholic High School)

5) My Catholic High School.(Coincidentally, this has resulted in me trolling some of my classmates at my Catholic High School)

P.S. --I have no problem with Catholics; I actually am one. But some of them just irk me so... and my school pretty much fell off the rails years ago.

[ICantSpellDawg]

My personality is trolling by nature. Tuffstuffmcgruff the poster and Tuffstuffmcgruff the troll are two sides of the same coin. I love irritating people and digging holes that neither of us can get out of.

My favorite trolls are any of the ubiquitously race/sex-baiting gems that I leave all around the forum. I'm only moderately racist, if that is even the term for what I am and I've dated girls of all colors. My little brother and sister are mullato puerto ricans for crap's sake.

I always fall for the "Homosexuals are born that way" troll because it is such speculative BS and I don't understand why people can forsake religion because it can't be verified but live and breathe unverified assumptions about sexuality and nature.

Jeez.

PS-Kamikhaan: You will miss those arguments in Catholic school because in the real world people don't care about important social/religious questions unless they are on Oprah or the 10 oclock news. When I transfered to a public high school - I was shocked when nobody wanted to discuss medieval church philosophy, so I immediately went back to Catholic school. As you get older, Catholics know less and less about their own Religious "beliefs". Cherish the explanations of the details while people remember them.

[Fragony]

Oh me so guilty

Perfect example would be the Hitler is a socialist thread. And I will never miss an oppertunity to compare multiculturalists with religious zealots, just because they are.

[Geoffrey S]

Does sniping from the sidelines count as trolling?

[Crazed Rabbit]

Well, there was that 'Greeks deny Macedonians entry into NATO because they're having a 2000 year old hissy fit.' thread.

That was the title, right?

Other than that though, not really.

CR

[HoreTore]

Anything involving Frags.








But I still love him in a very gay way

[Fragony]

owwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww

Forgot about my #1 rule for a better world, leave no pole unannoyed

[Pannonian]

"All Blacks Are Violent - is this a true statement? Or are they no worse than wallabies and springboks?" - Posted during the rugby world cup, and got people foaming at the mouth as desired. Unfortunately, someone then gave the game away by explaining that the All Blacks were the New Zealand rugby team.

"Schoolgirl Loses Virginity Ring Fight." - First 3 words were the thread title, last 2 words the content, linked to the news story about a schoolgirl who wasn't allowed to wear a ring symbolising her virginity. A fantastic reply to views ratio, mainly consisting of people admitting they'd been fooled and others asking why everyone was so keen to read the thread. Kukri spoiled this particular one by clarifying the thread title.

I don't think I've done much politically motivated trolling here, as my appetite for it has pretty much been sated elsewhere. Instead, my trolls have mostly been to provoke reactions and amuse people, like the above.

[Papewaio]

owwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww

Forgot about my #1 rule for a better world, leave no pole unannoyed

I didn't know you danced?

[naut]

I didn't know you danced?

I tend to troll when someone uses the statement, "I'm not a racist but...", that really gets me! Kinda like saying "I'm not a murderer, but ... STAY STILL WHILE I STAB YOU!!!".

[The Celtic Viking]

I don't do trolling - but then I'm really just a backroom irregular, so perhaps that makes me excused.

and I hate when atheists or those of other religions try to bull their religions (or lack of the above) through. I respect yours - respect mine.

If you truly did, you wouldn't be saying that, because you'd respect my belief that rationality must be promoted and irrational claims weeded out. Since a god belief of any kind is irrational, it is my conviction that it must be challenged and destroyed where possible - especially since the majority of theists are so because they were brainwashed by their parents in the first place.

That's something that I hate and can get me off, by the way - when religious people claim they somehow have the right to indoctrinate their children, or when religious people claim exclusive rights to morality, or when religious people...

(Besides, no belief deserves respect, least of all one based on faith. If I thought that the earth was flat, would you say no one has the right to challenge that belief either?)

[Viking]

[Kaidonni]

I admit it...I am sort of guilty of being like a troll...especially when people excuse Humanity damaging our planet and things along those lines. I chunter to myself when reading the newspaper, though, and probably do that more than post here in the Backroom.

To illustrate this, though, it's that thing on Global Warming. Greenhouses gases do have an effect on warming, because that is what makes our world not a frozen ball of ice like Europa in the first place. We might be in that thing called the Habitable Zone, but that doesn't defacto make our planet habitable and a nice temperature to go. Sure, solar activity might also be involved, and our current weather extremes and climate changes have taken place in so miniscule an amount of time that you could say it's pretty much all pointless, and just normal for an interglacial period (which I do have trouble imagining ending after only 12,000 or so years - don't ice ages and interglacials usually last a few hundred thousand years?). But, greenhouses gases are still involved. It's all to do with planetary atmospherics, and how planets absorb and re-radiate energy, and so on. It could be arrogant to say that we can't affect the climate, but it is just as arrogant to say we should be allowed to pump out whatever we want and however much we want into the atmosphere, that we are infallible.

There, said it. LOL. It really annoys me when newspapers just print letters that really don't get it, too. So what if CO2 was 16 times higher during one of the ice ages? We do have to go deeper and consider all factors, including the idea that the climate was in a balance with the CO2 then (all that ice, ocean currents, etc, balancing out with the CO2), and might not be now, and so on...it's all complex. I just watch debates online turn into a train wreck...LOL. I could get involved a lot more, but... I try to refrain from trolling because I'm afraid of being drawn into a heated debate where I get all wound up. I don't like getting myself wound up too much. Likely that the above example would have been one or two posts, and then I'd duck out to save my own skin...LOL.

[CountArach]

There are only two things that annoy me to the point where I feel like trolling:

1) Blind nationalism
2) People equating Stalin/Hitler (Still can't get over that)/Lenin/Mao, etc, etc with modern Democratic Socialism.

[Fragony]

so much fun. it's true by the way.

[CountArach]

so much fun. it's true by the way.

*Foams at the mouth*

[Fragony]

*Foams at the mouth*

It's a start but it takes more then a shave to root out such evil

[Ronin]

I must say I enjoy pointing out religious absurdity (mainly catholic because of my upbringing) and just sit back and wait for the backlash....Navaros always produces some fun posts

I have been a good boy about it lately though

ohhh...and republicans caught with their pants down having hot, sweaty man on man hairy butt-sex is always a cause for giggles too...watching the GOP supporters reply to that is always a hoot.

[Ronin]

*double post*

[Sigurd]

Since a god belief of any kind is irrational

I think there is a debate in here about 'Does God exist', where the Theist position crushed the atheist position. And I think the theist position used a rational argument.

[Viking]

I think there is a debate in here about 'Does God exist', where the Theist position crushed the atheist position. And I think the theist position used a rational argument.

Then again...uhm....your opponent was not able to complete the debate for RL reasons.

[Adrian II]

This will probably not surprise anyone: I hate to turn with the other mackerels. As soon as nine out of ten posters agree on an issue, I hide in a phone booth, change into SuperAdrian and fly to the defence of the defenceless, the unusual, or even the plain idiotic.

For fun, mostly. But sometimes I mean it.

[InsaneApache]

I miss Tony Blair, my bestest friend in the world!

Mind you, our Great Leader is shaping up nicely to take over his mantle, as a wassock.

[Husar]

I use to say stupid, meaningless, sometimes inflammatory things, sometimes I mean them, sometimes I don't and sometimes I'm not sure myself whether I mean them or not.
Don't know whether that fits trolling.

[JAG]

When IA makes posts like the above, I have to restrain myself - Every. Single. Time.

On other occasions it is normally one of three things - Chavez bashing, Immigrant bashing or stating how 'prison works' and 'those eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeevil people should be locked up foreverandeverandeverandeveramen.'

[seireikhaan]

I don't do trolling - but then I'm really just a backroom irregular, so perhaps that makes me excused.

If you truly did, you wouldn't be saying that, because you'd respect my belief that rationality must be promoted and irrational claims weeded out. Since a god belief of any kind is irrational, it is my conviction that it must be challenged and destroyed where possible - especially since the majority of theists are so because they were brainwashed by their parents in the first place.

That's something that I hate and can get me off, by the way - when religious people claim they somehow have the right to indoctrinate their children, or when religious people claim exclusive rights to morality, or when religious people...

(Besides, no belief deserves respect, least of all one based on faith. If I thought that the earth was flat, would you say no one has the right to challenge that belief either?)

Irony... too... great... can't... stop...

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Hi, My name is Seamus and I am an internet troller.

<<insert group response>>

My "troll" is usually well restrained. Last time he slipped out, the Backroom had been running a little slow and I...




I....





...opened a thread mentioning the use of firearms for personal defense.





Oh, I knew what I was doing alright. I knew I was goading that loathsome beast out and into the fray -- it was wrong and I knew it. You don't show a briefcase of petrodollars to a congressional committe chair or invite Mayor Barry over to view your pipe collection without knowing that you are crossing the line.


I have been goaded successfully once. Shambles, operating as "Just a Girl" lobbed a blanket insult to the intelligence of all US citizens. Being an ardent -- though not polyannish -- nationalist, I made the mistake of responding rather than using the ignore feature. This is, of course, exactly what Shambles sought. Soly slapped me with a banstick for suggesting that Shambles make a solo effort at something anatomically impossible. I lost, Shambles won -- because the shambler didn't care about being booted and I did. There is a lesson there.


Anyway, that's my story. Trust in my higher power and take it one day at a time.

Next?

[Fragony]

I use to say stupid, meaningless, sometimes inflammatory things, sometimes I mean them, sometimes I don't and sometimes I'm not sure myself whether I mean them or not.
Don't know whether that fits trolling.

Trolling is provoking a reaction, and I have never seen you say anything remotily inflammatory personally. See if I say that I have doubts about Chavez being the greatest man who ever lived, fair, honest, devine, I am likely to get a reaction from JAG, telling me that I am not smart because I'm dumb. That's trolling.