Case in point.
Oct. 20th, 2010 02:37 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
luna_manarHow to tell a troll from a rather socially inept person with a failure to communicate.
Note every single instance of abject rage being directed at a person who, ultimately, simply was not talking about the same thing everyone else was talking about.
The discussion starting from here.
And read every other discussion this person had with other people in this thread.
...There's a lot of mud-slinging, although thankfully, very little name-calling (really, it could have been way worse). But here's the thing: trolls will side-step every question you ask them to try and understand what they're saying. They will evade questions, and rampantly misinterpret the things you say.
People who are just communicating badly will more than likely answer your questions, and eventually, somewhere along the way, you will understand where the miscommunication is occurring. Ultimately, an understanding is reached, usually when both parties realize they weren't really fighting over the same thing in the first place. Or, they will come to understand the things upon which they actually disagree on, and more often than not, they are semantics that aren't that important in the scheme of things.
This is why I get frustrated with people on the Internet, and in general. Everyone defaults to "no you're wrong" so easily, and doesn't pause to parity-check: is this really a troll bent on offending people and getting a rise, or are we just missing each other somewhere in the middle of the communication crossroads?
I wish there were more grown-ups on the Internet.
EDIT: I am not saying that there aren't perfectly reasonable conversations with the same person going on in this thread. However, there are also some that were not quite as useful.
Note every single instance of abject rage being directed at a person who, ultimately, simply was not talking about the same thing everyone else was talking about.
The discussion starting from here.
And read every other discussion this person had with other people in this thread.
...There's a lot of mud-slinging, although thankfully, very little name-calling (really, it could have been way worse). But here's the thing: trolls will side-step every question you ask them to try and understand what they're saying. They will evade questions, and rampantly misinterpret the things you say.
People who are just communicating badly will more than likely answer your questions, and eventually, somewhere along the way, you will understand where the miscommunication is occurring. Ultimately, an understanding is reached, usually when both parties realize they weren't really fighting over the same thing in the first place. Or, they will come to understand the things upon which they actually disagree on, and more often than not, they are semantics that aren't that important in the scheme of things.
This is why I get frustrated with people on the Internet, and in general. Everyone defaults to "no you're wrong" so easily, and doesn't pause to parity-check: is this really a troll bent on offending people and getting a rise, or are we just missing each other somewhere in the middle of the communication crossroads?
I wish there were more grown-ups on the Internet.
EDIT: I am not saying that there aren't perfectly reasonable conversations with the same person going on in this thread. However, there are also some that were not quite as useful.
