"Ward Dossche -> Oli"  wrote:

 O>> Why should I get a node number in R24 when I already have uplinks
 O>> in R28 and Z3? Just because Fidonet used POTS in a time that is
 O>> not "relevant" anymore and it still can get over it?

 WD> I would like you to get a nodenumber to see you on a different level
 WD> than the troll.

Maybe try to change your thought patterns. As I'm not convinced that the
concept of troll is meaningful or helpful I really don't care, if you see me as
a troll or not.

You replied, but avoided my answer my question ... again. If I did believe in
trolls, I would wonder if the IC is one of them. Which would lead me to the
conclusion that there the status in Fidonet (point, node, ..., IC) and trolling
behavior are independent from each other. I also would find it remarkable that
many people who call other people trolls don't recognize their own trolling
behavior (Dunning–Kruger would come to mind). Then I would read articles such
as "Internet trolls are usually men who are psychopaths and sadists" and "1 in
5 business leaders may have psychopathic tendencies", which could bring up the
questions: how prevalent was psychopathy in Fidonet's "upper echelon" in the
last 35 years?

Anyway, it's all bullshit. Not even scientist agree on how to measure trolling
behavior, the causes of it and how to define it.


Constructing the cyber-troll: Psychopathy, sadism, and empathy
"Results showed that men were more likely than women to engage in trolling, and
higher levels of trait psychopathy and sadism predicted trolling behaviour.
Lower levels of affective empathy predicted perpetration of trolling, and trait
psychopathy moderated the association between cognitive empathy and trolling.
Results indicate that when high on trait psychopathy, trolls employ an empathic
strategy of predicting and recognising the emotional suffering of their
victims, while abstaining from the experience of these negative emotions. Thus,
trolls appear to be master manipulators of both cyber-settings and their
victims' emotions." [1]

vs.

Anyone Can Become a Troll: Causes of Trolling Behavior in Online Discussions
"In online communities, antisocial behavior such as trolling disrupts
constructive discussion. While prior work suggests that trolling behavior is
confined to a vocal and antisocial minority, we demonstrate that ordinary
people can engage in such behavior as well. We propose two primary trigger
mechanisms: the individual's mood, and the surrounding context of a discussion
(e.g., exposure to prior trolling behavior). Through an experiment simulating
an online discussion, we find that both negative mood and seeing troll posts by
others significantly increases the probability of a user trolling, and together
double this probability. To support and extend these results, we study how
these same mechanisms play out in the wild via a data-driven, longitudinal
analysis of a large online news discussion community.  This analysis reveals
temporal mood effects, and explores long range patterns of repeated exposure to
trolling. A predictive model of trolling behavior shows that mood and discussio
 context together can explain trolling behavior better than an individual's
history of trolling. These results combine to suggest that ordinary people can,
under the right circumstances, behave like trolls." [2]


[1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0191886917304270
    (use sci-hub.tw to get the full article)
[2] https://www.cs.cornell.edu/~cristian/Anyone_Can_Become_a_Troll.html

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