zlacker

This thread is two days old, but I wanted to put some content in relation to the behaviour of "trolling" to my comment above. I would add being quick to judge as yet another dynamic that adds little value and can cause positive dynamics to devolve. I volunteer myself as an example in the following link:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=119120

I put forth a great deal of skepticism regarding a product and actually got a response from one of the founding members of the company. It turns out that they actually had a real product that shows a great deal of promise...

This just goes to show that sometimes being quick to judge can have drastic consequences for others. I would argue that this is a form of trolling when a great deal of skepticism mixed with anecdotal information from the past (which has nothing to do with the present as things are more mutually exclusive than we would otherwise like to believe) leads to quick karma points and increased skepticism on behalf of other members.

"I for one welcome our new overlords". Oops wait, wrong context. What I meant to say is that being quick to judge is in many ways similar to the reactionary "comedic lashing out" I was citing in the comedic trolling above and can often times lead to making yourself look foolish at no cost to nobody but yourself (as immortalized by Kent Brockman in the above opening sentence of this paragraph!).

Like the comedic attempts above, this is not something that can be easily controlled. Rather this requires restraint exercised on behalf of the author of any given comment. One thing that I feel works against this all is the fact that the anonymity of the internet often affords people to keep doing what they are doing.

The fact that I'm using my real name online (for the first time mind you) is causing me to respond more deeply to this issue and to the open (and unfair) skepticism I was voicing in another thread. Definitely a tougher thing to do...definitely worth it.