Subj : Re: where did it all go? To : Bubblewrap From : "Time Warrior" Date : Thu Jul 17 2003 01:54 pm On 07-17-03, Bubblewrap said... B> From: "Bubblewrap" B> B> You know, I remember a time before the wide-spread use of the term "Troll" B> Really, I do. I stopped doing much of anything online for a while, and wh B> I came back, there it was! I'm not sure the two events are directly B> related, but as I recall, it was right around the time some group took it B> upon themselves to police Usenet on the whole, banning messages from serve B> that weren't on their special list, stuff like that. B> B> I remember thinking at the time that it would most likely come to pass (an B> this isn't far off from the way it was then anyway) that the term "Troll" B> would become a generic catch-all for anyone who decided to have an alterna B> opinion. B> B> Bad analogy? Sure. Still expounding on a point that several others have B> proven wrong? Depends on your point of view.. Trolling? As in "taking a B> stance specificly to aggravate you and get you to jump in and escalate, B> potentially to a flame war"? I don't see that happening here. Now, I B> started this thread, and it seems just about everyone mis-understood what B> was saying. Well, publicly anyway. Privately I got exactly the result I B> wanted in emails with several thoughtful and reasonable individuals who, B> notably, don't actually post here (Yes, that is what's known as an B> "implication", but you can feel free to call it "trolling" if that's what B> makes your cheerios taste better). And while TimeWarrior is at least B> drawing near the median on people agreeing or disagreeing with him, it's B> looking a lot like he isn't allowed to have a unique opinion either for so B> reason. That doesn't change the fact that I can count 45 new messages fro B> this thread, largely spurred by the two of us having less-than-popular B> opinions, that aren't advertisements or spam. This is not counting messag B> I've seen in this thread via other systems that for some reason don't make B> it as far as my ISP, and it's a record in all the BBS related newsgroups B> I've been monitoring for the last month, excepting a.b.bbs.doors, and that B> probably episodes of Barfy the Vampire Slayer or something. B> B> Now, I'm going to make a statement about activity of BBSs and BBSing in B> general. Most of you seem to have lost your dictionaries immediately befo B> the last time I made similar statements, so I'l be a little more B> descriptive. I'm not saying that BBSs are dead. I'm not saying that they B> aren't making a comeback. In fact, if either condition was true, I likely B> wouldn't be here bothering to say anything at all. I AM saying that they B> came perilously close to extinction, and not for the first time, and that B> they've been on life support until relatively recently. I mean, we're B> talking about something that has spanned over 25 years, even three years a B> can be considered relatively recent. And we know about the obvious B> elements, the leechers and the spammers and the assholes and all of the B> undesireable users that came and did most of the damage each time. B> B> What about those who started calling free thinking and alternate opinion B> "trolling"? They did no damage? And they aren't capable of doing the sam B> damage again? This thing we call BBS isn't going to die and come back to B> life too many more times, people. B> B> Now, you can call this trolling. You can call it wrong. You can call it B> whatever you want, frankly, that wasn't one of my major concerns when I B> decided to post. I think I'll just call it another 45 messages. Thank you my Troll Bretheran. I couldn't have said it any better than you can. Thanks for that piece of insight. Now, we feast on Yack and the meat of the rotting dead, my Troll brother! :-) Time Warrior, Sysop: Malkavia BBS : ICQ: 25055930 (Chicago, IL) Email: twarrior@malkaviabbs.com | Xpresit Net: http://www.xpresit.net Email #2: xpresitnet@juno.com [Sponsored by:] Do you Yahoo!? ________________________________________________________________ The best thing = to hit the internet in years - Juno SpeedBand! .