Are You A Troll?

'Block' buttons help. Once blocked they don't see you and you don't see them. Out of sight, out of mind.

I've seen a few cases where that would useful here.

Amen to that.

I know this post speaks of online trolls generally, but it applies here too, and what you said I've seen here repeatedly.

Just last night I was reading an older thread where an obviously inexperienced guy, probably a student or a hobbyist, was trying different ideas to control a small 12V motor, not having much success and so came to CR4 for help. He stated his objective, posted a few schematics showing what he'd tried so far - and was immediately shot down, shredded, and openly ridiculed by a number of people but especially by one very knowledgeable guy who should've known better.

The OP's 'crime'? Not coming here with 30 years' experience under his belt. Of course had he that experience, there would have been no need to come here in the first place. A new, inexperienced guy coming here hoping to find someone with more experience who could offer suggestions. Hardly an offense. Quite a few people commented, some with quite lengthy replies which obviously took some time to write, but instead of using that bandwidth to help him out, they shredded him to pieces. Only two people offered good suggestions. The rest ridiculed him. I've seen quite a few threads like that here, and it's nearly always the same people. The trolls.

Now let's back up and look at the big picture: IEEE doesn't need CR4.

This forum came along for the ride when IEEE bought GlobalSpec from IHS, and you can be damn sure they didn't buy it for CR4. They don't need us, period. They're a large, highly respected professional organisation with a reputation to uphold, and if our behavior here serves to sully that reputation, they'll drop us like a hot potato - and I wouldn't blame them one bit.

CR4 could be a real asset if we tried, but for that to happen the trolls will have to go.

I've helped on hundreds of threads from new inexperienced guys and there are just a few who right from their first paragraph you just know they have a demanding attitude and unfounded superiority complex and stuff just spirals out of control from there.

Initially I give the benefit of the doubt and give allowances for the possibility of them having common english as a second or their language or just poor writing and word choice skills. But still, if things keep coming off as demanding, arrogant and all around proudly stupid heck yea, I have no problem running them into the ground, heck I go so far as to set them up to make themself look bad on top of it!

I found the end result to be always self inflicted and observable right from the get go.

A while back I went head to head with a real arrogant idiot on another forum and got the big dummy to even come over here and show us how much more superior his knowledge of things was than mine and any other person of a technical and engineering background like he claimed to be.

Bypass oil filter systems design questions.

After that he went to AP mode and made a total ass troll of himself for a few weeks trolling me and a few others on every thread he could find just to make himself feel better or whatever.

On the other site I returned the favor and went around knocking him down by showing the technical truth and flaws to out right idiocy of whatever he claimed was true until I got kicked off the site for "being mean to him" even though he and 2 - 3 others were doing far worse anyone who had any views of anything they didn't agree with and had been doing that for as long as I had ever been on that site.

Ignore them. They're not worth it. That's a piece of your life you're not getting back, so why invest it in them? Let 'em feed somewhere else on somebody else's tab.

Actually, it doesn't take much for CR4 to be an asset, for the most part. A question is asked, and people respond.

as far as trolls, that's a word that gets thrown around too loosely. Even on here, I'm watching a debate going on, and because one member doesn't agree with the another member the term troll gets thrown.

I do like to visit and read through a discussion that's addressing an issue I'm not familiar with, it can be quite enlightening.

Amen!

Your English was very good and quite well written. Not a given here.....

I myself found, other than that, nothing else positive in your "rant". Nothing!

Try reading it through again, but this time think to yourself that I or any number of other members here, wrote it, what would be the result?

A nasty reply at best from you, going by your previous stuff!!

You get upset SO easily.

Furthermore, you apparently believe that you are the ONLY one here with good ideas, or manners.

And not just here either, it would seem.

I can 100% honestly say that I have never enraged anyone, apparently halfway around the world, (other than maybe your good self today!) to fly around the world, threatening to kill me....yet anyway!!

Maybe this post will do it?

And certainly not anyone physically near to me either, why in God's name would anyone do that?

I was in customer Service for many years for several large US computer companies after leaving the RN.

Flyíng around the world to fix problems and calm customers, you don't get to stay there in such a position with your attitude demonstrated here in you last post....

I seriously mean this, go and talk to a "Trick Cyclist" as fast as you can!!!

I may not ever be your best friend, but I do tell the truth....

You make and exemplify many of my points perfectly.

You sure are going to great lengths to convince us you are not a troll. i count 19 I's. you are always justified, right, and abused, and surprised when you are not recognized immediately for your intellectual command of all topics. Just saying.

I like CR4 when people ask interesting questions that have interesting answers. Enery once in a while, I can contribute. The rest of the time, it is best to ignore.

I was trying to point out the common subjects and issues that most anyone who puts forth an effort to help others goes through after having been on forums long enough.

Is being comfortable and confident in myself and who I represent myself to be and in what topics I choose to participate in online some sort of offence to which using myself as a example a bad thing?

Should I be all wishy washy, meek and have no memorable presence in the topics I chose to interact in instead?

5 I's.

GA

He will never learn why you post that!!

One has to ask yourself. What's the definition of troll?

That's the problem here. Everyone has their own definition of what a troll is and none of us/them would ever define ourselves/themselves as "one".

We're all perfect in every way.

I considered referencing the song "Kids" from the musical, Bye Bye Birdie when tcmtech was expounding on all the times he had been wounded while trying only to "do good". He seems to be very knowledgeable of forums and all the ways one can be trolled.

I repeat, this blog should not have invited responses!

My post was intended for PFR to THINK. that's all.

thanks.

I had to give you a GA.

The first good post reading down from the top that says it like it mostly is on CR4.

Especially the part about safety that I also try and always to mention. That is one part that CR4 must improve on I feel, in each and every post we make!

Again, thanks for your very reasonable thoughts and posts.

I came here initially to see if this forum was any different than several dozen or so online forums I checked out. On almost every one there was always the guy or the group that had to be in control and if they approved of you then they would communicate with you, if they didn't, they in a matter of words would knock down everything you said and in a sense asked you why haven't you located the nearest bridge and jumped off already.

Occasionally I have seen engineers here argue a particular point, more often than not it's about something I know absolutely nothing about. There must be something about all the time a person has invested in a discipline that makes it difficult for them learn something from another perspective and yet not feel that they have been slighted.

Tcm's mention of the person coming over to kick his booty, reminds me of the CB Rambo's who would crank up their power so high you could hear him screaming his vulgarities 20 miles from the nearest truck stop, when their promises to appear failed to materialize, it was often found that they were sitting in the rear bunk with the curtain closed, like those basement armchair general's we hear about so often these days.

I am currently enjoying my time here, I am constantly learning new things. I do admit that there are a great many things discussed that I have never been involved with, although I feel that if I can gain a glimmer of knowledge from what I have read, then my time here is well spent

Thank you for sharing your time and knowledge,

Tony

"Occasionally I have seen engineers here argue a particular point, more often than not it's about something I know absolutely nothing about. There must be something about all the time a person has invested in a discipline that makes it difficult for them learn something from another perspective and yet not feel that they have been slighted."

For me when someone argues against something I understand and have spent huge amounts of my personal time researching and learning about all I want is a valid rational logically laid out explanation for why they see things differently and why I may be wrong. Many here have proven me wrong and shown me new information and I have always tried to show appreciation for it.

The only issue I have are with those who say I am wrong and don't understand yet give zero anything to show otherwise or if they do show anything it's the same old well understood to be inaccurate, incomplete, outrightly wrong, or highly biased worn out narrow minded drivel everyone else who has the same unrealistic/uneducated/closed minded views uses.

I am no engineer. When I was at school the engineers didn't have much respect for my 'soft science'. Thirty years later I'm more inclined than ever to agree with them! Nevertheless, I am blessed with a curious mind, an imagination and a love of making things work differently. As a consequence I have asked the forum for info on several different subjects, doubtless displaying my ignorance in the process. I can think of no occasion when I was treated with anything but courtesy, kindly concern (eg. "Don't play around with lithium cells") and especially, a real desire to help. Thanks to all and a Merry Christmas

I think that this blog was ill advised, and at the least should not have been open to comments.

That would have given the readers a chance to self reflect instead of self aggrandize.

Anonymous public forums are just that. Anonymous.

My knowledge of such forums is limited, but I'm guessing that there are moderators in others, as there are here, who have the power to steer the mood and tenor of the forum in the direction they desire, when they desire to do so.

AS PWSlack says, the problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place.

Try looking here:-

internet-trolls-are-narcissists-psychopaths-and-sadists

Let us not forget that there is a clear difference between a "troll" and a person with strong personal views clashing with others of opposing strong personal views.

Heated response posts are merely the outcome of an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object (so to speak) and in my opinion unprofessional rather than deliberate provocation or attacks against someone or group who the offending poster has no vested interest in a topic being discussed and is only posting for the sake of hurting others for their own pleasure.

If you all read the many examples of heated posts between CR4 regulars it is clear they have both strong views and good points and knowledge of the subject matter being discussed, hence NOT trolling.

In my opinion CR4 is mostly troll-free thanks to the watchful eye of both the CR4 users and site admin, and for that we should all be proud and thankful.

Unfortunately many have a very hard time separating 'what is' from 'what they feel it should be'.

Just look at how many high level people in the public eye get outrightly attacked for being bigoted or racist or such and such, when what they said has such zero real implied direction or intent, just for having an opinion that's their own and not the same as the the easily offended and butt hurt vocal majority.

For example, someone says 'let's make rules to keep unwanted bad people like terrorists and dangerous illegals out of our country' and the first thing out of some idiot's mouth is that the person who said what they did is being racist or bigoted against some ethnicity, religion, or whatever that has no real relevance to what and who they are talking about.

I see it right here on this thread. I used myself and my own experiences as a example of how intending to do good got rolled over into personal attacks on me for any reason someone would find justified or otherwise and just as I said in my own personal examples several people here had to go and start saying I was a narcissistic troll and even do specific word counting to justify their labeling me as such because of it.

I for one am not ashamed of what I have experienced in my life and never will be. Nor will I ever take offence to someone recounting personal experiences and observations that did not go well for them in order to show an example of something.

Now what fascinates me about this is how only certain people read something negative into nothing and then take it to be a personal attack on them when absolutely no implied content or direction was used then use that to justify a real attack on that person over nothing.

To me it's like yelling ,"Hey stupid, Look at me!" in a crowd and then seeing a number of people get all butt hurt and defensive because they looked and reacted as someone was calling them out personally. That reaction they gave is not the guy who yelled it's fault. It's the person who reacted as if they were being spoken to's fault.

If someone yells a non specific non directional 'Hey stupid' and you answer I suspect that means you think you're stupid and thusly the one being yelled to being those who don't think of themselves as stupid have no problem with it and instead of being offended get a bit of a laugh out of watching you and how you took it personally. I always have!

I for one when in such situations have always looked to see who looked at the guy who yelled it and not at that person myself then had a good laugh at who took offence to their own reactions!

But then I may be a narcissistic bigoted racist ego driven troll who doesn't feel that such an action may be directed at me to begin with.

Tcmtech, your not a narcissistic bigoted racist... your just a prima donna

The second definition, that is.

01: a person that's considered vain, temperamental and/or conceited.
02: a distinguished female operatic singer; a leading female operatic star; a diva.

Embrace it.

Well I've known that for years!

LOL!!

I believe you have a persecution complex.

As I said, this blog should not have invited comments because we all have a different idea of reality. Unfortunately, we cannot always be objective about our own reality, nor statements made by other members.

You have your opinion, nothing more.

That is all we have on an anonymous forum.

As I have learnt over the years it is very difficult to change peoples minds on the internet no matter what angle you use in your discussions or how much evidence, logic and common sense you employ. Eg- See my numerous discussions with people over free-energy pseudoscience topics over the years.

Perhaps you should just let some of it go, life is too short to get too worried about what someone thinks on the internet, especially if some are just making it harder than they should because you may appear a little thin skinned or easy to provoke (eg- they are being a bit of a troll towards you).

If you only knew what I did let go you'd be proud of me.

Interesting that you consider me thin skinned. I have others on other forums that consider me to be too thick skinned to relate to or care about what anyone says.

I agree, "mostly Troll free".

The worst offenders I have met are plainly mostly females on certain websites, "Trollettes" maybe a better name, demonstrating poor judgement, poor manners and strong sociopathic tendencies.

I leave them well alone....

The problem with encouraging bans and legal consequences for trolling is that it is censorship and as such you have to put someone in charge of what is and isn't acceptable. People are imperfect.... not just the ones you consider to be Trolls.

A legitimate rebuttal, read from a personally defensive stance could easily be mischaracterizing as trolling.

Consider if we're to claim that this posting in CR4 was either intentionally or accidentally skewing the research sited, copy-pasting as proof the paragraph below noting psychopathy was unrelated to trolling enjoyment.....

".....To examine the unique contributions of the Dark Tetrad on

trolling enjoyment, we conducted a multiple regression analysis

with data from the subsample of commenters. Total sadism,

Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy were entered as

predictors of trolling enjoyment. This analysis indicated that sad-

ism, b = 0.53, t(78) = 4.21, p = .002, and Machiavellianism,

b = 0.23, t(78) = 2.23, p = .03, were unique predictors of trolling

enjoyment. In contrast, when controlling for the other Dark Tetrad

scores, narcissism was negatively associated with trolling enjoy-

ment, b = -

0.30, t(78) = -

3.30, p = .001, and psychopathy was

unrelated to trolling enjoyment, p = .89. The pattern of association

was unaffected by controlling for overall Internet use...."

.

If, rather than point out the error that 'trolling enjoyment' was just one facet of the study and that psychopathy was indeed correlated in other ways to trolling, offense was taken and I was banned from the site and charge with criminal aggravation, what possible good would come from that? I can think of lots of negative impact even without considering the effects on me personally.

.

If someone is being crude, mean, spiteful, and/or hateful towards you, you needn't accept any of it. You needn't honor their opinion by feeling slighted. You don't owe them a response but of course you are free to point out their misunderstandings if you are feeling generous.

It is better that people are free to express exactly what type of person they are, rather than be corralled into appearing as decent contrary to fact.

.

This is not a commentary on rules for specific sites like CR4. Whoever owns the site should have the right to enforce whatever rules they like, even if those rules might be interpreted as trolling. Anyone who doesn't like it can start their own site.

This commentary is just suggesting restrictions on freedom of speech (especially when aimed broadly) deserve very careful consideration and should not be ideas thrown about as quick fix it alls.

<unsubscribe>

On that basis, this thread is inherently another <...pointless argument...on the Internet...>

<unsubscribes>

Anonymity, and accountability will fall farther and farther behind (the number troll-type contributions?) as more and more of the general population continues to de-mature...

So after reading the posts and seeing what has sprung up between tcmtech and others, I have to ask the question, was this original post a very well disguised trolling effort? Seems to have worked that way.

My own take on this:

Bet it wasn't meant to be a trolling effort - we are just too sensitive these days. We are ALL looking for a negative meaning to any post we read. I have had several posts taken 180 degrees from what I meant, by a poor choice of wording on my part, and a bad application of sarcastic humor which was read by others without them realizing it was a poor attempt at humor- not what I believed.

In general, that is the prevailing attitude today. I fear humor is going to have to disappear for a while, as few are looking for that anymore, but are looking for hatred/bigotry/just plain old nastiness. I am not sure how comedians can even develop a routine these days without totally offending some groups. Good luck to any sports commentator who falls prey to the desire to create some humor- he/she is bound to offend someone, and just one is all it takes to start a firestorm of back lash anymore.

I got kicked out of a forum once for being racist.

I said pro sports players were overpaid and I got a permanent ban for being racist for it plus every single post I ever made that the site admin could find deleted too because of it as well which made a load of threads look really stupid with people quotes of me without anyone there.

The site went under about 6 months after that from the site admin doing such nonsense over anything anyone said he disagreed with. Nobody was left so I suspect he lost is click money funding that kept it open and going!

I dont think its because of your grammar.

He started going after me after he made an ass of himself because I called him out on a few threads for not being able to follow what the OP was saying and working with where he had claimed far different scenarios than reality and the OP showed to be dealing with.

Butt hurt old man with too much pride to admit having made a simple and common reading error is the source of the issues not your language skills. No one here is a english language expert by profession so it's typically expected that no one here has perfect spelling or grammar that's easily followed by everyone nor that we all have perfect reading comprehension either.

I pulled D's and D-'s in english classes all my life so what does that say about everyone else?

They should have far better overall writing and reading skills than me, right?

If you want to prove you're better and more knowledgeable than someone step up and prove it with the topic at hand with professional actions and tack not act like a petty old ass of a former human being at every spite driven opportunity you can twist an excuse to act as such into.

It's the only honorable defence I can think of that won't leave you looking like some petty ignorant fool and worse for your efforts.

With regard to spelling and grammar too, online, most browsers offer a free spell checker.

The trick is to actually use it!! Many cannot be bothered.....

I did better in English apparently than you, but almost 60 years ago.

I have lived away from my home country for around 45 of my 70 years. Maybe even a tick more if I added it more carefully, so my English spelling has become a disaster....I need my browser!!

From what I see a lot of people end up with grammatically bad sentences because of the grammar and spell check systems swapping out correct words with wrong ones on their own. Kings English Vs common English Vs local English. All three wrong or correct depending on who you are and where you speak it.

Same with spelling. Get a word off by one or two letters or a space in the wrong place and it substitutes a incorrect word or several and if a person doesn't do a detailed proofread it gets missed.

I catch it all the time and others have commented on the issues with various browser systems as well. It's a very well known issue.

I never have that problem, as I use Chrome, (I used to use Firefox for many years, but now it has seriously slipped behind Chrome fairly recently) it only underlines words in red that it thinks are wrong, it does not change them.

A great and better idea than a browser/spell checker, that is allowed "free rein!"

Though if I right click on the red underlined word, it offers me alternatives, mostly just one.

The proffered USA spellings I mostly never use, I am a Brit, we (mostly) invented the language (), so I feel that it's my right to refuse to use the US versions.....

Also, most US spell checkers do not know for example the old English word "learnt" !! There are many more like that, for instance some English words that end in "-ise" or "ised" for example.....the US spell checker wants a "z" instead of the "s".....

I personally have never seen or used a spellchecker that "did its own thing" as you apparently do, so to say, that would simply annoy me personally!! Maybe its set up wrongly as to automatically do that?

Can you tell me of one spell checker that even does that?

I see that given as being a problem by many people who simply are either too lazy to spell properly, or who simply cannot.....autistic tendencies maybe?

I use Microsoft Office 2010 for writing books and it basically does the same, with a grammar checker as well, it helps me a lot when I am translating German Electronic manuals into English.

It's not always correct with the Grammar, probably at least 90% of the time it is....but it does NOT correct me automatically, I have to agree to the correction. Maybe I set it up that way, I have forgotten....

I use the 'Spell Checker for Chrome' plugin and it's set for whatever it defaults are and fro discussion in other forums I believe many people have the same issues with its auto correcting or auto replacing words. Many say they see it do it all the time too.

As for my spelling, it has always been terrible. It's just how my brain works. I don't have the natural fluidity of use in that area others have. I'm likely mildly dyslexic in that area of thought processes. That and it's just never been a area of concern to improve either.

Same with typing. I can't type more then a few words without looking at the keyboard and I cant type quickly without watching where my fingers go either. Same with handwriting.. I can't write anything legible or correctly without watching where my hand goes but I can write with both hands if I don't think about which one I am usng.

Try changing the setup, as it is now, its probably far worse than you picking the right word yourself!!

You should read slower, you have taken a meaning from the text that was not there in any shape or form.....and doing that ALWAYS causes problems.....

Maybe an apology would be a good move?

it was meant to highlihght the absurdity of the comment, through the use of humor. I am sorry. Humor is not somrthing a person should throw around without thinking through the consequences. (It is actually a line from a movie)

Maybe, but who in tarnation would guess that?

You still owe him an apology I believe.....

Indeed, low voltages can be dangerous. Some have lost more than a digit.

I try not to pester anyone in particular, except Lyn, and all "trolling of Lyn" is done in the kindest possible way. Actually, he and I have an agree to disagree clause on some issues, and on others we are in lock step.

I like pretty much everyone on CR4, as having useful banter, constructive criticism, creative suggestions. There are a few that just blather about mindless funk, that brings everyone down, but even those folks know typically when to cool their jets.

IEEE should definitely keep CR4 rolling along. There is a lot more to discuss in engineering that electricity, it is just that electricity sort of puts a jolt in engineering.