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Results suggests trolls aren't seeking praise or wanting to manipulate; other studies indicate they may breed more. While it's important to preface what is to follow with a reminder that correlation doth not causation make, a new study [Pay Walled, Abstract Available] has found seemingly clear ties between internet trolling and a person's likelihood of being predisposed to the "Dark Triad." [Pay Walled, Abstract Available] But more interestingly it finds that only one particular negative personality trait is stroked by trollish behavior and its findings suggest trolls may be breeding.
The paper's critical finding was that the Dark Triad of personality traits were often correlated, or in other words someone who was narcissistic would be more likely to be psychopathic, and so on, statistically speaking.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/style-blog/wp/2014/02/12/online-trolls-are-just-everyday-sadists-according-to-new-paper/
http://www.dailytech.com/Study+Internet+Trolls+are+the+Prototypical+Everyday+Sadists/article36091.htm
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 22 2014, @01:23PM
ugh, can we please avoid paywalled articles
(Score: 5, Informative) by umafuckitt on Sunday June 22 2014, @01:59PM
Google is your friend [scottbarrykaufman.com]. Pro-tip: with research papers just search for the article title in quotes plus "pdf". It often does the trick.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 22 2014, @04:16PM
This helps for this article. Generally, the parent poster still has a point: The link to the freely available paper should have been in the submission instead of the link to the paywalled article.
(Score: -1, Troll) by unauthorized on Sunday June 22 2014, @03:16PM
Here is a link to the original paper and totally not a smartass reaction to the subject [youtube.com]
(Score: 1) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 22 2014, @05:46PM
Links to paywalled articles = (sadistically)baited hook?
trolling is also a form of fishing so:
trolling fisherman?
trolling phisherman?
fishing troll?
phishing troll?
???
With apologies to AnonTechie if none of this fits you but,,, might want to be careful with AnonTechie's image.
Sounds silly coming from Anonymous Coward don't it?
(Score: 1, Troll) by Runaway1956 on Sunday June 22 2014, @01:39PM
So, the bottom line is, trolls are heterosexual? The study was probably done by a gay group then.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2) by tynin on Sunday June 22 2014, @01:44PM
Is the joke whooshing over my head, or? I fail to see how you came to that conclusion.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday June 22 2014, @03:55PM
When I first read this article, it said "trolls are multiplying" or something to that effect. Or "trolls are breeding". The title implied the joke. And, it was probably edited to conform with political correctness, leaving the joke all alone and looking stupid.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday June 22 2014, @05:17PM
I'm starting to think that posting these stories is a deliberate ploy to try to get all of the "troll" out of everybody's system here so that the other discussions are less tainted by emotional reactions and other shitposts.
Which reminds me,
N i g g e r s
i
g
g
e
r
s
(Score: 3, Funny) by c0lo on Sunday June 22 2014, @01:51PM
No, I most strenuously deny it. I'm not because...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 22 2014, @01:48PM
there are no trolls on the internet.
trolls live under bridges.
stop making things up!
FYI "troll" is used wrong. just like "hacker" is used wrong. but who cares, "I got ad-sense on my website! leet!"
(Score: 3, Informative) by stormwyrm on Sunday June 22 2014, @02:31PM
I remember an article [soylentnews.org] from several months back. Seems like the same research, judging from the researchers' names.
Numquam ponenda est pluralitas sine necessitate.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 22 2014, @02:52PM
Indeed, it made the rounds of ALL the normal news sites many months ago, including mainstream media.
I can't figure out what it's doing on the front page today.
(Score: 5, Informative) by stormwyrm on Sunday June 22 2014, @03:01PM
Indeed, and it seems that this is already the second time the article [soylentnews.org] was duped! Incidentally, the dupe I was trying to link to was this [soylentnews.org]. I should never post links while mobile...
Numquam ponenda est pluralitas sine necessitate.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 23 2014, @01:34AM
Just as patent applications should have as part of the approval process an opportunity to review those by a battery of persons skilled in the art, the Submissions page [soylentnews.org] needs a button beside each item allowing the community to point to a previous story that looks very much like the "new" item.
At a minimum, it would make the Related Stories section more inclusive.
The Firehose concept the other site has isn't such a bad idea either.
-- gewg_
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 23 2014, @03:23AM
Or, you know, someone with authority, let's call them an "editor" for kicks, could use his or her brain to check the date(s) involved, which in this case was shown to be old news RIGHT IN THE URL OF THE LINKED ARTICLE.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by kaszz on Sunday June 22 2014, @03:11PM
The papers (hopefully the right ones):
* Trolls just want to have fun [scottbarrykaufman.com] Erin E. Buckels a,⇑, Paul D. Trapnell b, Delroy L. Paulhus c
* The Dark Triad of personality: Narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy [researchgate.net] Delroy L. Paulhus * and Kevin M. Williams
* Shedding Light on the dark triad of personality: Narcissism, Machiavellianism, and Psychopathy [psych.ubc.ca] (Bonus paper)
(Brought to you despite the corporate Elsevier thug that has been shunned by universities like Stanford, demand ownership exempt at open access universities like Duke, is deeply tied with arms dealing, witch hunts authors that dear to publish their own papers, letting editor-in-chief bypass peer review of papers, assisting big pharma written journal to be presented as peer reviewed, paying for favorable reviews, fails peer review bait, uses hostile bundling tactics and support for SOPA, PIPA, and the Research Works Act.)
Found this in the first report: "those with antisocial personality disorder /../ use Facebook more frequently than others, thus indicating that dark personalities leave large digital footprints." [Buckels, E. E., et al. Trolls just want to have fun]
I think this also hints that this type of dark triad people thrives in social environment that rewards other qualities than merits, analytic and complex thinking.
So by looking at the dark triad [wikipedia.org]. The personality type looks like the opportunistic schoolyard bully. Deny them access, space and social entanglement at all times. Should that fail use excessive force at once. Don't ever let pests like this grow.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Hairyfeet on Sunday June 22 2014, @07:24PM
"Dark Triad"...really? Do we REALLY need another hipster catch phrase for what is essentially self absorbed douchebags? Whats next, we gonna have lawyers arguing to let douchebags get off on horrible crimes because "he has all the symptoms of the Dark Triad your honor".
As for what to do about them? I'll get hate for saying it but I still think we need a "no AC" button so that the users can decide if they want to deal with douchebags or not because AC was practically designed for douchebaggery, they can be as nasty as they want with no karma hit, since they won't see any replies its just perfect for flinging shit and walking away, and it gives them a great way to derail threads without consequence. if you wanna argue about the freedom to be a douchebag go right ahead but I've noticed the places that don't allow ACs? The conversations are a LOT more productive, healthy, and on topic because being a douchebag has consequences.
So if you truly believe you REQUIRE the ability to "AC post for freedom" which frankly makes no God damned sense as its not like this site does a background check, you could put down you are a 23 year old Vulcan from ork for all the registration cares, you could still keep the OPTION while allowing those that actually care more about discussion filter out the AC douchebaggery without also having to filter out unpopular UID posts. Otherwise you get what you have on Slashdot now, where more than half the posts are fucking ACs and a good 90% of them are nothing but insults, flamebait, and attempts at derailing threads...yeah, because that is what you want in a thread about file systems or CPUs, a dozen "fuck you cocksucker" posts.
Oh and as for what you do with douchebags IRL? all you can do is throw 'em in jail when they break the law as you can't have a free society without the freedom to be a douchebag and you can't make a self absorbed douchebag give a shit about anybody but themselves, you just can't.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Sunday June 22 2014, @08:06PM
Where did I mention anything about posting anonymously?
And jails are not a mitigation because there's a whole process in place before that happens. And police, lawyers and judges easily falls into this category them self. This is a type of person one has to deal with from day one in your neighbor kid, daycare, school, work etc.
As for the term "Dark Triad" it's there to make the connections easier to understand. It's not an excuse.
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Sunday June 22 2014, @09:28PM
TFA talks about what to do with "DTs" online and since tfa says they want attention? Denying it to them seems like a pretty obvious choice as for what to do.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Monday June 23 2014, @01:45PM
The problem isn't with AC. AC does give people a mostly anonymous platform to voice their opinion. Plenty of times over the years on /. people have voiced their opinion about sensitive topics or avoiding revealing themselves by using AC. The problem lies within people who can't help but feed the trolls. The whole point of trolling is to start a flame war or piss as many people off as possible. They get to be a dick with 0 repercussions. Just throw out an insult about X and reap the butt-hurt reward.
The best defence is modding down and then ignoring them. But there is always captain internet justice, an idiot that can't resist typing up a thesis with the smug thought that they are schooling the troll. That is the trolls target. Someone who can't resist trying to look like a hero by tearing the trolls post apart. They waste an hour or more carefully crafting a response only to have the troll laugh at them for wasting time. That or a starting a religious war by sparking a silly argument. Just go to any Apple story and say Apple sucks because of X and watch the shit storm that ensues.
And I must admit it but there are PLENTY of non AC posters who are dicks. I have a pet name for those DB's on that other site: slashdicks. I have a foe list made up exclusively of people who are complete asperger shit bags who don't care they're not AC. They will happily talk down to someone tossing out as many hurtful insults as possible to make themselves feel superior. I had one twat actually tell me my head should be bashed in because of how I choose to drive. I added him to the shit list (foes) then tracked him for a bit and witnessed him write another post telling the editor of a story that he should die in a car crash. Yea, this guy was advocating violence and murder for the most mundane of things. Did he post AC, NOPE!
So in summary, AC isnt bad, its people who feed the trolls who are to blame. Just read the article and if you spot a troll comment, LEAVE IT ALONE. If a person is showing ignorance, dont be a dick and try to feel smug, politely correct them. Being a dick will also bring out the worst in people as they lash out in defence.
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Monday June 23 2014, @09:04PM
Go pick any article from any topic on /. your choice, count the number of ACs, ok? Now count how many of those are actually worth reading and compare it to how many are just obvious douchebaggery...I'll wait. Wow, you are looking at a good 9 to 1 douchebag ratio huh?
What you are arguing is a variation of the "limewire can be used for Linux distros" argument which actual observance proves incorrect. Just because something CAN be used for X does NOT mean that X is the most popular use for the thing or that X is even in the minority. Go do the math yourself, really not hard, shouldn't take more than a few minutes to just pick say 3 random articles on /. and compare the "good AC" to douchebag and see that good AC posts are not even close to being a majority and are in fact a teeny tiny minority compared top its largest use which is trolling and derailing threads.
But you see this is what makes the NO AC button a brilliant idea...you like ACs? just don't push the button, its THAT easy. The NO AC button would let guys like you keep it if you want while guys like me don't have to deal with AC bullshit because for us AC posts would no longer exist...now isn't that fair? Letting the users decide whether they want the ACs or not? And all other methods of dealing with ACs simply do not work, hell look at me, it says plainly that I surf at +2 so I don't see ACs yet I still get ACs trying to troll me in the hopes that I might be surfing at -2 that day. With NO AC they would be able to see an icon by my name so that would know 100% without a doubt that "trying to troll this person is pointless, he'll never know you even exist" which should cut down on the amount of trolling, and on the flipside there are plenty of UID users here that go against groupthink and get downmodded and because I have to surf at +2 just to get rid of ACs I don't get to see these posts when I really do want to see all the UID posts.
So in conclusion the current methods we have for dealing with ACs simply doesn't work, my method would be a user choice, not enabled by default, and would allow guys like you to go through the whole friend/foe/freak/AC bullshit while the rest of us could just click a button and call it a day.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Dunbal on Sunday June 22 2014, @04:51PM
Yeah I will believe any "study" based on trolling once there is a consensus and a study design that defines "trolls" completely and accurately with no possibility of them being "someone who disagrees with me".
(Score: 3, Interesting) by aristarchus on Sunday June 22 2014, @07:50PM
Now here is the real problem. I believe it is related to the "political correctness is censorship" fallacy. Not everyone I disagree with is a troll, but I do disagree with all trolls. So if I disagree with a poster, it may in fact be more likely that they are a troll than not!!! But certainly the worst thing to do would be to exclude everyone that disagrees with me from being trolls, which would mean that I myself would be a troll, and a sycophantic one at that.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Sunday June 22 2014, @08:10PM
Real people can discuss their points in a analytic manner. As for the trolls, they are a evolutionary mistake that shall be marginalized to minimize their impact.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 22 2014, @04:55PM
Submission queue is running low. Please send in your submissions to help avoid posting more crap stories like this. Thank you.