Beth
- 2015-02-09
Clearly there is as you don't seem to know what it means... But then definitions have never been your strength, have they?!
Sharp
- 2015-02-09
No need to search for the meaning when examples keep coming 
Somebody
- 2015-02-09
Beth, you've mentioned the word "trolls" numerous times on forums and you've posted plenty
If you're implying that posting a lot is equivalent to trolling I suggest you look the word up.
Sharp
- 2015-02-08
Beth, you've mentioned the word "trolls" numerous times on forums and you've posted plenty
Beth
- 2015-02-07
It's rare I enter in to tit for tat with them anymore. Occasionally I will dip my toe in, but nowadays I usually just respond with facts or information... Their silence on these posts speaks volumes.
I do wade more than I should, but I do so hate the thought of newbie teachers coming to this board and thinking their way is the norm.
Plus, I'd have to care about them or their sordid little opinions in order to feel slighted by their made up insults and ludicrous fallacious claims about me... And i really don't!
Very interesting article, though. I read a similar one a few days ago about why ISIS uses the shock tactics and the levels of barbarity they do. The author said it was because they know they cannot hope to win on a military level and so they release these shocking videos in order to strike fear in to the public at large. And it works, the UEA withdrew from the air raids after the capture of the Jordanian pilot for fear their pilots would also be captured.
I think ISIS made a mistake with the murder of Moaz al-Kasasbeh though, as I read today that the UEA have pledged support for Jordan and will assist with their airstrike retaliation. ISIS made a move against moderate Islam far too soon, and the desecration by fire is a massive no no to the Muslim faith, i think they may have prodded the wrong hornets nest this time. We can but hope.
As for Internet trolls, the ones on this board make the people who comment on YouTube videos look like Einstein. The worst I have to worry from them is that I should know better than to argue with idiots!
To the posters on this forum who suffer from other posters' comments (those allowed online by the moderators): You are not alone! It's a universal plight!!!
If you read the online versions of newspaper columns you can click over to the reader comments, which are often critical, vituperative and insulting.
It’s too psychologically damaging to read these comments as evaluations of my intelligence, morals or professional skill. But if I read them with the (possibly delusional) attitude that these are treasured friends bringing me lovely gifts of perspective, then my eye slides over the insults and I can usually learn something. The key is to get the question of my self-worth out of the way — which is actually possible unless the insulter is really creative.
It’s not only newspaper columnists who face this kind of problem. Everybody who is on the Internet is subject to insult, trolling, hating and cruelty. Most of these online assaults are dominance plays. They are attempts by the insulter to assert his or her own superior status through displays of gratuitous cruelty toward a target.
The natural but worst way to respond is to enter into the logic of this status contest. If he puffs himself up, you puff yourself up. But if you do this you put yourself and your own status at center stage. You enter a cycle of keyboard vengeance. You end up with a painfully distended ego, forever in danger, needing to assert itself, and sensitive to slights.
Clearly, the best way to respond is to step out of the game. It’s to get out of the status competition. [...] The person who can quiet the self can see the world clearly, can learn the subject and master the situation.
David then proceeds to compare online trolling with the psychological dynamics of ISIS's acts of barbarism in the Middle East.
In this column, I’ve tried to describe the interplay of conflict and ego, in arenas that are trivial (the comments section) and in arenas that are monstrous (the war against the Islamic State). In all cases, conflict inflames the ego, distorts it and degrades it.
The people we admire break that chain. They quiet the self and step outside the status war. They focus on the larger mission. They reject the puerile logic of honor codes and status rivalries, and enter a more civilized logic, that doesn’t turn us into our enemies.