Let’s just say I was called out today in the comments section of another blog to be an Internet Troll. It turned into quite the Kerfuffle. Thankfully many other commenters in that wonderful community came to my defense. I greatly appreciate them. I don’t like to point fingers by calling out someone by name, so therefore I will not do that. I will however say it was wretched, simply wretched.
I commented on another’s comment with a quick one liner that was supportive of the commenters comment, on topic and in keeping with the nature of the comments for the blog. I know the nature of the blog as I’ve been a daily reader for most of said blogs 15 year existence. I rarely comment but do on rare occasion should something come to mind that fits and I’m in the mood to.
My reprimand wasn’t from the person for whom I commented with support, but out of left field from someone who wasn’t even previously even in the conversation. I was told to “go away” because I apparently didn’t have enough previous comments recorded in my records to be there or have an opinion. I was called both an “Internet Troll” and a “sock puppet.”
So being the contemplative Beard that Fearsome is, he asked me to google the definition of Internet Troll. On Wikipedia we found this definition:
In Internet slang, a troll is a person who starts quarrels or upsets people on the Internet to distract and sow discord by posting inflammatory and digressive,[1] extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community (such as a newsgroup, forum, chat room, or blog) with the intent of provoking readers into displaying emotional responses[2] and normalizing tangential discussion,[3] whether for the troll’s amusement or a specific gain.
Hmmmm. Fearsome then started to wonder what defined Sock puppet, Wikipedia defines it as:
A sockpuppet is an online identity used for purposes of deception. The term, a reference to the manipulation of a simple hand puppet made from a sock, originally referred to a false identity assumed by a member of an Internet community who spoke to, or about, themselves while pretending to be another person.[
Hmmm.
Lets then look at what happened. I commented on topic, in keeping with the nature and in support of the commenter to which I commented. Out of left field someone aggressively tries to upset and distract from the comment thread by making an unfounded off topic inflammatory name calling statement, directed at me simply because I didn’t have enough comments in my history to satisfy their personal minimum threshold.
Looking at this honestly, who would actually fit the definition of Internet Troll here?
Hmmm.
As far as sock puppet, I had never ever heard that term but let’s again look at this. On Disqus you can click on the user and see their profile. If you click on mine it’s open for all to see. One can read all my comments and even click a link to this here blog thingy, and this here blog thingy leads directly to me as I have nothing to hide. If you click on said user that did the name calling their Disqus profile is labeled “Private” and one cannot see their past comments nor anything about them.
Looking at this honestly, which profile might better fit that of a sock puppet?
Hmmm.
I’ve found in life that an aggressive accuser is often guilty of the very indiscretions to which he/she is falsely accusing another. I was brought up in the south and we had a little saying there that seems to fit. That saying is simply “Glass Houses”.
