[Air-l] Doctorow on Dealing With Trolls

[Mary-Helen Ward]

I would say that the boundary is evident when someone repeatedly 
transgresses the mores of a list. If a list has a high level of 
agression then it will attract and retain people who are aggressive. 
Peaceable people will not join or, having joined, will not stay. 
Behaviour that would be described as trolling elsewhere might be quite 
acceptable there.  But when a cyberspace is generally peaceable, a 
person who repeatedly demonstrates aggression is trolling. Like so many 
other things in life these issues are culturally determined by the 
people involved, and what is acceptable in one place is unacceptable 
elsewhere. Part of being socially successful is understanding and 
abiding by these conventions.

Does that make me a troll?

M-H


James Whyte wrote:

>"After much thought about the matter, I have come reluctantly to the conclusion that scientific truth, like juristic truth, must come about by controversy. Personally this view is abhorrent to me. It seems to mean that scientific truth must transcend the individual, that the best hope of science lies in its greatest minds being often brilliantly and determinedly wrong, but in opposition, with some third, eclectically minded, middle-of-the-road nonentity seizing the prize while the great fight for it, running off with it, and sticking it into a textbook for sophomores written from no point of view and in defense of nothing whatsoever. I hate this view, for it is not dramatic and it is not fair; and yet I believe that it is the verdict of the history of science." Boring, Edwin G. (1929). The psychology of controversy. Psychological Review, 36, 97-121. [Boring's 1928 APA Presidential Address about past controversy in psychology.] 
>   
>  79 years later history this statement is still relevent. I think Boring proposes the progress of scholarship is measured by people who are willing to challenge the status quo. 
>   
>  Where is the boundary between legitimate controversy and "Tolling"? Who is the arbiter of trolling vs controversy. Doctorow does not address these important distinctions.
>   
>  Perhaps the more dangerous persona is the scholar who thinks he is able to divine this boundary? Perhaps they are the true trolls?
>   
>  James
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>