[techtalk] Re: techtalk digest, Vol 1 #454 - 3 msgs

[Mary Gardiner]

On Sun, May 13, 2001 at 01:37:26PM -0400, Linda MacPhee-Cobb wrote:
> As for the troll reference I do not understand it? If I do not agree with 
> you I am a troll?  Personal attacks weaken your aguments and show others 
> that your point can not stand on its own merits.

It means your behaviour is so odd that several people here think you are
a knowledgeable person who is pretending otherwise in order to essentially
draw angry responses from people who are fooled. A troll on a feminist list
would say "but didn't you get equality with equal pay" and trolls on Linux
lists have several common (but not sufficient, admittedly) characteristics:

i) They tend to talk about 'your' operating system, how 'you' want it to be
mainstream, how 'you' haven't made it very easy to use. This is a specific
example of iii). Also, they are very angry with'you' as it is clearly 'your'
responsibility that everything is wrong with Linux, and moreoever, that 'your'
precense on a list of volunteers implies a duty to help them that 'you' are
disregarding.
ii) They talk about the superiority of Windows, not just for a particular
task, aspect of using Windows, but in a blanket way.
iii) They use the second-person *singular* 'you' in order to get people to
respond.

It is rare for people to be called a troll on these lists, so in general it is
not used as a blanket term for people who disagree with you. In fact it is so
rare, that this mail is for people who don't recvognise the term, genuinely.

The use of personal attacks in an argument doesn't actually weaken an argument.
It does not imply that the point that is being made or not is actually false,
nor does its presence render the rest of the argument invalid.

The only reason it may render an argument invalid is being used as a premise in
the argument, *if* the attacks are actually false claims.

Their mere existence may simply make the arguer *look* rather poor, it implies
that the argument is invalid or the conclusion false not at all.

Mary.

-- 
Mary Gardiner
<mary at puzzling.org>
GPG Key ID: 77625870