#10 - Trolls are not welcome on the board.

What is a troll? lol


those little dudes with big poofy colourful hair... lol

Internet Troll

On the Internet, troll is a slang term for a person who posts messages intended to create controversy or provoke an angry response rather than to add content to a discussion. Like those who engage in flaming, Internet trolls sometimes resort to innuendo or misdirection in the pursuit of their objectives.

Origins
The term trolling, like the term flamebait, originated as a fishing metaphor: like people who troll for fish, people on the internet were dragging a conversational lure through a group, baiting for a response. Later, the verb became a noun, as a trolling person was labeled a troll. In its noun form, troll picked up the association of the monster trolls in folklore.

Usage
Some feel that using the noun (calling someone a troll) makes unnecessary assumptions about a writer's motives, whereas using the verb (calling a post trolling) describes the reception of a post without making assumptions about motives. Thus, it may be possible to troll unintentionally. Regardless, labeling not only posts but people trolls is very common in current usage.

Of course, not everyone who is accused of being a troll actually is. Some posts will look like "trolling" to some while seeming like meaningful contributions to others. Behavior which might be considered a simple rampage or an emotional outburst in other environments is often tagged with the term "troll" in internet discussion.

Reasons for the use of slang monikers in Internet discussion explored in peer reviewed literature exploring behavior in electronic networks such as the Internet include a sense of anonymity or impersonal perceptions of others, which tend to reduce perceptions of the value of another person in a dialogue.

Examples
Common types of troll messages or activities:
off topic messages — "Can anyone help me make a webpage?" "No, this is a music forum."
inflammatory messages — "You are an idiot for including this type of message in your list."
messages containing an obvious flaw or error — "I think 2001: A Space Odyssey is Roman Polanski's best movie." intentionally naive or politically contentious messages — "I think George W. Bush is the best/worst President ever."
intentionally posting an outrageous argument deliberately constructed around a fundamental but obfuscated flaw or error.
posting a ridiculous claim and then insisting it's true unless people refute it to their satisfaction.
making loud claims to be on the defensive, while the claims are a guise for their aggressive maneuvers.
including offensive media such as annoying sound files or disturbing pictures in a message.
after successfully baiting users, feigning innocence and/or feigning ignorance of procedures
A variant of the second variety (inflammatory messages) involves posting content obviously severely contradictory to the (stated or unstated) focus of the group or forum- for example, posting cat meat recipes on a pet lovers forum, posting evolutionary theory on a creationist forum, or posting messages about how all dragons are boring in the USENET group alt.fan.dragons.

Cross posting is a popular method of choice by Usenet trolls: a cross-posted article can be discussed simultaneously in several unrelated and/or opposing newsgroups; this is likely to result in a flame war. For instance, an anti-Fast food flame bait might be cross posted to healthy eating groups, environmentalist groups, animal rights groups, as well as a totally off-topic Artificial Intelligence newsgroup.

An example of a successful troll is the well-known "Oh how I envy American students" USENET thread which got 3000+ followups.

Find this and more here: http://www.wordiq.com/cgi-bin/knowledge/lookup.cgi?title=Internet_troll

Cheers

From the guidelines -

#10 - Trolls are not welcome on the board.

wtf would a troll be doing on a Dj message board anyway?:p