Concern troll
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== Not concern trolls == | == Not concern trolls == | ||
| − | Sometimes outsiders will come by and make concern troll-like statements sincerely. Communities need to take care of the fine balance between siege mentality | + | Sometimes outsiders will come by and make concern troll-like statements sincerely. Communities need to take care of the fine balance between siege mentality, calling out blatant bullshit. |
People such as [[Joe Lieberman]] are not concern trolls - they are [[Hanlon's Razor|sincere but stupid]], which can be more damaging in practice. | People such as [[Joe Lieberman]] are not concern trolls - they are [[Hanlon's Razor|sincere but stupid]], which can be more damaging in practice. | ||
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| + | Infrequently, it may happen that a person labelled as a concern troll is a sincere, insightful, and justified [[iconoclast]] -- and is merely making valid observations unwelcome to the dominant ideology or culture of the forum ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassandra_(metaphor) the Cassandra syndrome]). In environments of genuine [[groupthink]], applying the ''concern troll'' label may serve as a means of enforcing conformity and punishing (or silencing) dissent, and even without actual groupthink in play, many Internet posters find dismissing an argument much quicker and easier than evaluating it. More often, of course, the person is misguided and wrong, if not actually trolling. Unfortunately, distinguishing such cases requires substantial application of time, thought, critical thinking, and patience -- extremely scarce resources in most Internet forums. | ||
== See also == | == See also == | ||
Revision as of 00:30, 18 December 2010
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A concern troll visits sites of an opposing ideology and offers advice on how they could "improve" things. The term originated on Daily Kos.[citation needed]
The concern troll's message is: "I have some concerns about your methods. If you did these things to make your message less effective, it would be more effective."
Concern trolls appear most frequently on very opinionated sites and are generally easily spotted by the locals, since their advice is uniformly bad for them and good for their ideological opponents. Some so-called parodists "concern troll" on Conservapedia, and there has been evidence of concern trolling on Free Republic.[1]
Another common tactic is the "a plague on both your houses" approach, where the concern troll tries to convince people that both sides of the ideological divide are doing the same thing, or are just as bad as each other, knowing the site's reason for existing in the first place is to promote one side of the ideological divide. This preys on the sites' willingness to actually debate critics and allow dissenting commentary, since there normally isn't any more to these accusations than the endless repetition of the assertion.
Not concern trolls
Sometimes outsiders will come by and make concern troll-like statements sincerely. Communities need to take care of the fine balance between siege mentality, calling out blatant bullshit.
People such as Joe Lieberman are not concern trolls - they are sincere but stupid, which can be more damaging in practice.
Infrequently, it may happen that a person labelled as a concern troll is a sincere, insightful, and justified iconoclast -- and is merely making valid observations unwelcome to the dominant ideology or culture of the forum (the Cassandra syndrome). In environments of genuine groupthink, applying the concern troll label may serve as a means of enforcing conformity and punishing (or silencing) dissent, and even without actual groupthink in play, many Internet posters find dismissing an argument much quicker and easier than evaluating it. More often, of course, the person is misguided and wrong, if not actually trolling. Unfortunately, distinguishing such cases requires substantial application of time, thought, critical thinking, and patience -- extremely scarce resources in most Internet forums.
See also
- Agent provocateur (this can be considered the opposite of concern trolling in that an agent provocateur will attempt be more extreme, rather than less extreme, compared to the group)
- Groupthink (this can lead to allegations of "concern trolling")
- Troll by proxy
Footnotes
- ↑ Sending Ben Nelson A Message!, Free Republic