Alarming News: I like Morgan Freeberg. A lot.
American Digest: And I like this from "The Blog That Nobody Reads", because it is -- mostly -- about me. What can I say? I'm on an ego trip today. It won't last.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: We were following a trackback and thinking "hmmm... this is a bloody excellent post!", and then we realized that it was just part III of, well, three...Damn. I wish I'd written those.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: ...I just remembered that I found a new blog a short while ago, House of Eratosthenes, that I really like. I like his common sense approach and his curiosity when it comes to why people believe what they believe rather than just what they believe.
Brutally Honest: Morgan Freeberg is brilliant.
Dr. Melissa Clouthier: Morgan Freeberg at House of Eratosthenes (pftthats a mouthful) honors big boned women in skimpy clothing. The picture there is priceless--keep scrolling down.
Exile in Portales: Via Gerard: Morgan Freeberg, a guy with a lot to say. And he speaks The Truth...and it's fascinating stuff. Worth a read, or three. Or six.
Just Muttering: Two nice pieces at House of Eratosthenes, one about a perhaps unintended effect of the Enron mess, and one on the Gore-y environ-movie.
Mein Blogovault: Make "the Blog that No One Reads" one of your daily reads.
The Virginian: I know this post will offend some people, but the author makes some good points.
Poetic Justice: Cletus! Ah gots a laiv one fer yew...
Most folks on the innerwebs seem to share a rather well-defined vision of what exactly the term “troll” is supposed to describe. It’s some person participating in the content of a group discussion, without really participating in its subject. He just says stuff to get folks riled up, slimes, slanders, drifts away, doesn’t truly engage the topic or any dialogue around it. Wikipedia says it’s “someone who posts inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community…with the primary intent of provoking other users into an emotional response.” The Urban Dictionary says it’s a “member of an internet forum who continually harangues and harasses others.”
Just about everyone seems to agree, more-or-less, on what a troll is.
The really hardcore lefty people, though, have a different definition. Before we define that, let’s define them. “Of course Obama doesn’t have everything fixed yet, it’ll take Him a very long time with the damage that’s been done to this country for the last eight years.” I think that’s a good definition. No standards to be imposed on Holy One, but pretend things are the exact opposite, that Holy One is raising the standards, while failing to fulfill any. And anything & everything can be satisfactorily answered with one more zinger at Bush. That’s what I call hardcore left. Works for me.
Their definition seems to be…if you offer an argument, and I can’t respond to it logically, or even look like I’m responding to it logically…in other words, if you have me backed into a corner. That makes you a “troll.”
They are really marching to the beat of their own drummer on this one, on the usage of that particular word.
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The trolls are the major reason I have all-but-sworn-off blogs lately. I’m just sick and tired of their constant cut n paste talking points, the same tired debunked arguments being posted again and again, the ad hominem personal attacks, the strawmen, hyperbole, and red herrings.
Sometimes they also complain bitterly about how racist, sexist, hateful, whatever, the blogger is, but I notice these sock puppets keep coming back again and again, often even after being banned. They just re-register and return. Many of them not only don’t care that they aren’t wanted, they actually seem to get a kick out of annoying others who are there to have serious intellectual debates about something. Others among them seem desperately concerned about keeping the blog from becoming “an echo chamber,” as if it would be one without left wingers around to throw mud, or as if it’s really this person’s place to become a self-appointed guardian of ideological diversity.
I’m not especially tolerant of the left-wing or secular worldview to start with – it is dead wrong on every conceivable viewpoint and I don’t think it has anything meaningful to contribute to a discussion – and I don’t feel like reading the opinions of such people when I go to a conservative blog. It would be easy enough to ignore them, but other posters do respond and allow them to hijack the discussion threads.
Worse, often the blogger or moderator(s) often don’t even make any attempt to purge the offending poster or delete his comments, out of some misguided notion of wanting to keep the discussion forum ideologically diverse or something/
The lack of such people is one reason I return here pretty much every day. It’s one of the few blogs where the writing is of high quality, and yet, you don’t have some left-wing jackass hanging around in the threads mocking people and saying ridiculous things.
- cylarz | 01/06/2010 @ 00:24