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Members kef and einar have written about some recent research:
"A new study from the University of Manitoba has claimed that internet trolls might not be so nice or mentally stable in real life. While previous studies have shown that people with negative character traits are using the internet more frequently for their own amusement, not to socialize, the results seem to link trolling to sadism. Two surveys among amazon's mechanical turk users were conducted which allowed creating a character profile of the participants. Based on the profile, internet behavior could be correlated with different character traits. Trolling appears to be correlated to sadism.
From the study:
... correlations, sometimes quite significant, between these traits and trolling behavior. What's more, it also found a relationship between all Dark Tetrad traits (except for narcissism) and the overall time that an individual spent, per day, commenting on the Internet. ... To be sure, only 5.6 percent of survey respondents actually specified that they enjoyed "trolling." By contrast, 41.3 percent of Internet users were "non-commenters," meaning they didn't like engaging online at all. So trolls are, as has often been suspected, a minority of online commenters, and an even smaller minority of overall Internet users.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Tuesday March 04 2014, @06:40PM
The moderator who marked me off-topic did not understand that I'd just trolled the bejeezus out of him.
What the typical press reporter, psychologist, schoolteacher, social worker and so on do not understand, is that the vast majority of trolls are in no way violent nor hateful.
Go look up localroger's article at Kuro5hin [kuro5hin.org], in which he proposes replacing K5's MySQL database with flat files and assembly code.
Kuro5hin is STILL complaining that that could not possibly work, despite roger - a fifty year old Gulf of Mexico industrial control systems engineer - having lucidly explained YEARS ago that he wrote that purely as a troll.
He also points out that the Marquis de Sade was not in reality in any way a sexual predator or pervert, but that he invented Sadism because he was just trying to be funny. As a result he spent half his life in prisons and insane asylums.
Jonathan Swift in his "A Modest Proposal" suggested that the scourge of Irish poverty could be readily alleviated by slaughtering Irish infants that their meat may be served on the supper tables of wealthy Britons.
As a result, a price was put on his head by the British Crown.
Yet he lived to a ripe old age, despite that every soldier and sailor in the entire British Empire was looking for him. How do you suppose he pulled that off?
I have a major product announcement [warplife.com] coming 5:01 PM 2014-03-21 EST.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 04 2014, @08:16PM
You trolled nobody, and the moderation imposed on your post was absolutely correct. Trolling, at least the definition the TFA uses, is purposefully making people on a forum angry or upset for your own pleasure. It probably upset the moderator who gave you an Offtopic mod about as much as spam from a Nigerian prince.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 04 2014, @08:57PM
I'm the one who moderated you offtopic (posting AC so I won't undo it). I take moderating seriously. It's kinda' like jury duty.
My first thought was that your post could have been an attempt to troll in a discussion about trolling so I almost modded it funny. But it wasn't directed at anyone, and it just seemed random. It didn't make sense to moderate it troll, and it was definitely offtopic so that's what I gave it.
Sometimes I wish I could add a note to the moderation for these types of situations. I mod up instead of down about 20 to 1. I'm sorry you were the one.
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Tuesday March 04 2014, @09:21PM
I rather enjoy that I get moderated zero or -1 about as much as I get moderated to five.
I was puzzled by my Soylent News message regarding a "relationship change". WTF?
It turned out that two Soylentils changed their relationship to me at about the same time, one to friend one to foe.
Go look at what people say about Repeatible Hairstyle at Kuro5hin. That's my nick there. Many of them hate me with a furious passion, but I am quite seriously mentally ill, so from time to time I check into a nuthouse or even get arrested.
If I don't post at k5 for a few days, they all go bananas trying to find me. If they can't find me, they lose all will to live.
I honestly do try to contribute in a positive way to k5, soylent, slashdot, advogato and facebook. Really I do. I have mod points here and at Slashdot. I too take them very seriously; for example I only moderate posts that no one else has moderated yet, as I long ago noticed that many moderators are rather lazy, in that once a post is moderated to 2 or 3, it very quickly makes it to five, whereas many well-deserving 0 or 1 comments never get moderated at all.
I generally bump up an otherwise moderated comment by just one, so as to draw attention to it by those lazy moderators.
I also work hard to find deserving comments.
Go have a look at my technical articles [warplife.com], and you will see I really do work hard to do right by others.
I have a major product announcement [warplife.com] coming 5:01 PM 2014-03-21 EST.
(Score: 2) by TheloniousToady on Tuesday March 04 2014, @09:06PM
Thank you for being a friend.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday March 05 2014, @09:15AM
You missed a minor contribution in that "he proposes replacing K5's MySQL database with flat files and assembly code." which vaguely resembles the NoSQL movement which is like tossing a bucket of gasoline onto a campfire. Absolutely hilarious in a parody sense. The cultural trends and background make it even funnier than at first glance.
In comparison, if he proposed replacing the JVM with flat files and assembly code, or something else totally off the wall, he would get a much more WTF reaction than humor, but his parody of a subcultural trend in DBMS is absolute genius. And it doesn't even matter if he knows it or not (as a controls engineer or whatever he is, he's probably not a big DBA guy) but the cultural reaction by people who do know, is what makes it funny.