Doug Horne and Swamp Fire Lounge coming to Palm Springs!!! - California Events

O Ojaitimo Member Joined: Aug 04, 2006 Posts: 1317	O Ojaitimo Posted posted on Thu, Jan 10, 2008 7:13 PM It wasn't deleted, I posted it here by accident. It's on the Look what I got last night post. But here it is, from Wikipedia The most likely derivation of the word troll can be found in the phrase "trolling for newbies," popularized in the early 1990s in the Usenet group, alt.folklore.urban (AFU).[5][6] Commonly, what is meant is a relatively gentle inside joke by veteran users, presenting questions or topics that had been so overdone that only a new user would respond to them earnestly. For example, a veteran of the group might make a post on the common misconception that glass flows over time. Long-time readers would both recognize the poster's name and know that the topic had been done to death already, but new subscribers to the group would not "get it," and would thus respond. These types of trolls served as a Shibboleth to identify group insiders. This definition of trolling, considerably narrower than the modern understanding of the term, was considered a positive contribution.[7][5] One of the most notorious AFU trollers, Snopes,[5] went on to create his eponymous urban folklore website. By the late 1990s, alt.folklore.urban had such heavy traffic and participation that trolling of this sort was frowned upon. Others expanded the term to include the practice of playing a seriously misinformed or deluded user, even in newsgroups where one was not a regular; these were often attempts at humor rather than provocation. In such contexts, the noun troll usually referred to an act of trolling, rather than to the author. [ Edited by: Ojaitimo 2008-01-10 20:29 ]

It wasn't deleted, I posted it here by accident. It's on the Look what I got last night post.
But here it is, from Wikipedia

The most likely derivation of the word troll can be found in the phrase "trolling for newbies," popularized in the early 1990s in the Usenet group, alt.folklore.urban (AFU).[5][6] Commonly, what is meant is a relatively gentle inside joke by veteran users, presenting questions or topics that had been so overdone that only a new user would respond to them earnestly. For example, a veteran of the group might make a post on the common misconception that glass flows over time. Long-time readers would both recognize the poster's name and know that the topic had been done to death already, but new subscribers to the group would not "get it," and would thus respond. These types of trolls served as a Shibboleth to identify group insiders. This definition of trolling, considerably narrower than the modern understanding of the term, was considered a positive contribution.[7][5] One of the most notorious AFU trollers, Snopes,[5] went on to create his eponymous urban folklore website.

By the late 1990s, alt.folklore.urban had such heavy traffic and participation that trolling of this sort was frowned upon. Others expanded the term to include the practice of playing a seriously misinformed or deluded user, even in newsgroups where one was not a regular; these were often attempts at humor rather than provocation. In such contexts, the noun troll usually referred to an act of trolling, rather than to the author.

[ Edited by: Ojaitimo 2008-01-10 20:29 ]

Post #354180 by Ojaitimo on Thu, Jan 10, 2008 7:13 PM