Originally posted by Blaupanzer
However, I'm not sure that your being laughed at represents that other person biting on the troll.
However, I'm not sure that your being laughed at represents that other person biting on the troll.
a) The level of arrogance in the opening post of this thread is far, far beyond that which I usually display. I'm well aware of my image (which I'll admit I have deliberately cultivated a bit), and used it to my advantage.
b) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_troll
An Internet troll, or simply troll in Internet slang, is someone who posts controversial, inflammatory, irrelevant or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum or chat room, with the intention of provoking other users into an emotional response[1] or to generally disrupt normal on-topic discussion.
point(I) laughter is an emotional response
point(II) if you think that Ming's only response was genuine laughter then you are quite naive. Arrogance draws out quite a bit of visceral anger in most people, and is one of the easiest ways to get a strong reaction. Ming demonstrated the need to continue to post laughing smilies, especially after it was pointed out that he'd been quite successfully trolled
c) The real point of this thread was not a simple arrogance troll. If you want to see an example of that you should probably see my intelligence rankings thread (which I believe set a Poly record in terms of time to reach 500 posts: just over 24 hours). The excessive arrogance here was inserted to prepare the path for the more sophisticated aspect of the thread, which was a self-referential critique of the nature of modern academic reputation. Unfortunately for Ming he got caught up on the less sophisticated aspect, thereby missing everything else. This does not surprise me, as he is one of the less self-aware people here (he seems to genuinely lack the ability to stand back from himself).
There are 2 major reasons I'm posting this rather long-winded explanation:
1) I'm quite pleased with my own cleverness
2) There has been a dearth of successful/clever trolls lately. Let this thread serve as an object lesson in the art. Really good trolls should do more than provoke anger or a reaction; they should, through the reaction they cause, be pedagogical
-Ron
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