JazzMan's Field Guide to Trolls.

[estevie]

Lance:
For purposes of clarification, does this post mean you don't necessarily agree with JMJ?

*snicker*



Anyway, very informative post, Jim. While I don't agree with most of your 'samples' of said trolls, still a great post! The only trolls for me are the ones who go unregistered to make their jabs. People can exhibit troll-like behavior but if I can say "hey, Lance, shut the fuck up" or "KR, you are a freakin' idiot" then they are not trolls. They have a name that I can respond to, they are registered members of this board, they might be an ass but they say what they say with a name, they take the heat for saying whatever it is they want to say. That's not a troll to me.

Oh, my apologies to Lance and KR for using them as examples, y'all were just the ones that popped into my head as I wrote.

 

[Guest]

Then there's the "Jump on any bandwagon" Troll, like Storm.

The "Fat as a pig but thinks he's hot" Troll, like JMJ.

Lance is right, go back to whacking off over kiddie porn, JMJ. It's more your speed.

 

[Stout chap]

George Monbiot wrote in a recent column that sometimes trolls are actually employed by companies, so that makes all those troll-wannabes even sadder, thinks.

I'll post his column, it ran thus:

The president of Zambia is wrong. Genetically modified food is not, as far as we know, "poison". While adequate safety tests have still to be conducted, there is as yet no compelling evidence that it is any worse for human health than conventional food. Given the choice with which the people of Zambia are now faced - starvation and eating GM - I would eat GM.

The real problem with engineered crops, as this column has been pointing out for several years, is that they permit the big biotech companies to place a padlock on the food chain. By patenting the genes and all the technologies associated with them, the corporations are manoeuvring themselves into a position from which they can exercise complete control over what we eat. This has devastating implications for food security in poorer countries.

This is the reason why these crops have been resisted so keenly by campaigners. The biotech companies have been experimenting with new means of overcoming their resistance.

Zambia, Zimbabwe and Malawi, all of which are suffering from the current famine, have been told by the US international development agency, USAID, that there is no option but to make use of GM crops from the United States. This is simply untrue. Between now and March, the region will need up to 2m tonnes of emergency food aid in the form of grain. The UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation says that there are 1.16m tonnes of exportable maize in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and South Africa. Europe, Brazil, India and China have surpluses and stockpiles running into many tens of millions of tonnes. Even in the US, more than 50% of the harvest has been kept GM-free. All the starving people in southern Africa, Ethiopia and the world's other hungry regions could be fed without the use of a single genetically modified grain.

But the US is unique among major donors in that it gives its aid in kind, rather than in cash. The others pay the world food programme, which then buys supplies as locally as possible. This is cheaper and better for local economies. USAID, by contrast, insists on sending, where possible, only its own grain. As its website boasts, "the principal beneficiary of America's foreign assistance programs has always been the United States. Close to 80% of the USAID contracts and grants go directly to American firms. Foreign assistance programs have helped create major markets for agricultural goods, created new markets for American industrial exports and meant hundreds of thousands of jobs for Americans".

America's food aid programme provides a massive hidden subsidy to its farmers. But, as a recent report by Greenpeace shows, they are not the only beneficiaries. One of USAID's stated objectives is to "integrate GM into local food systems". Earlier this year, it launched a $100m programme for bringing biotechnology to developing countries. USAID's "training" and "awareness raising" programmes will, its website reveals, provide companies such as "Syngenta, Pioneer Hi-Bred and Monsanto" with opportunities for "technology transfer" into the poor world. Monsanto, in turn, provides financial support for USAID. The famine will permit USAID to accelerate this strategy. It knows that some of the grain it exports to southern Africa will be planted by farmers for next year's harvest. Once contamination is widespread, the governments of those nations will no longer be able to sustain a ban on the technology.

All that stands in the way of these plans is the resistance of local people and the protests of environment groups. For the past few years, Monsanto has been working on that.

Six months ago, this column revealed that a fake citizen called Mary Murphy had been bombarding internet listservers with messages denouncing the scientists and environmentalists who were critical of GM crops. The computer from which some of these messages were sent belongs to a public relations company called Bivings, which works for Monsanto. The boss of Bivings wrote to the Guardian, fiercely denying that his company had been running covert campaigns. His head of online PR, however, admitted to the BBC's Newsnight that one of the messages came from someone "working for Bivings" or "clients using our services". But Bivings denies any knowledge of the use of its computer for such a campaign.

This admission prompted the researcher Jonathan Matthews, who first uncovered the story, to take another look at some of the emails which had attracted his attention. He had become particularly interested in a series of vituperative messages sent to the most prominent biotech listservers on the net, by someone called Andura Smetacek. Smetacek first began writing in 2000. She or he repeatedly accused the critics of GM of terrorism. When one of her letters, asserting that Greenpeace was deliberately spreading unfounded fears about GM foods in order to further its own financial interests, was reprinted in the Glasgow Herald, Greenpeace successfully sued the paper for libel.

Smetacek claimed, in different messages, first to live in London, then in New York. Jonathan Matthews checked every available public record and found that no person of that name appeared to exist in either city. But last month his techie friends discovered something interesting. Three of these messages, including the first one Smetacek sent, arrived with the internet protocol address 199.89.234.124. This is the address assigned to the server gatekeeper2.monsanto.com. It belongs to the Monsanto corporation.

In 1999, after the company nearly collapsed as a result of its disastrous attempt to thrust GM food into the European market, Monsanto's communications director, Philip Angell, explained to the Wall Street Journal: "Maybe we weren't aggressive enough... When you fight a forest fire, sometimes you have to light another fire." The company identified the internet as the medium which had helped protest to "mushroom".

At the end of last year, Jay Byrne, formerly the company's director of internet outreach, explained to a number of other firms the tactics he had used at Monsanto. He showed how, before he got to work, the top GM sites listed by an internet search engine were all critical of the technology. Following his intervention, the top sites were all supportive ones (four of them established by Monsanto's PR firm Bivings). He told them to "think of the internet as a weapon on the table. Either you pick it up or your competitor does, but somebody is going to get killed".

While he was working for Monsanto, Byrne told the internet newsletter Wow that he "spends his time and effort participating" in web discussions about biotech. He singled out the site AgBioWorld, where he "ensures his company gets proper play". AgBioWorld is the site on which Smetacek launched her campaign.

The biotech companies know that they will never conquer new markets while activists are able to expose the way their operations damage food security and consumer choice. While working with USAID to open new territory, they also appear to have been fighting covert campaigns against their critics. Their products may not be poisonous, but can we say the same of their techniques?

 

[Don K Dyck]

Re: Re: Geez . . . I'm Notorious . . .

...typical Flamer response.

Typical arrogant Ugly American reply . . . Listen teascup stir . . . I did not ask to be included in this thread, and I reserve my right to defend myself in any way that I feel is appropriate . . . who do you think you are, George Dubyah shrub the world's biggest puppet?? . . . the world's most dangerous provocateur??? Wake up Wanker!!!

 

[Guest]

Hey JMJ. Another unreg troll here to talk shit. So you want to be a teacher, huh? Think that cruising porn boards and child porn rings is the best thing for a teacher of our youth to be doing? I don't, i think you're a fat loser. Who is your ex wife fucking lately? Who are your kids calling daddy? BTW, were did you steal that article from anyways? That is so sad if you did steal it and rewrite it for lit just to have somethign worthwhile to post. What would be even sadder is if you actually had enough time to put into writing it yourself. Loser? No life? No wonder that your wife left you and took the kids.

 

[Guest]

look at him and then ask why she left.

 

[VanB]

Whatever anyone else thought, Jazzy - I thought it was entertaining.

 

[Guest]

look at him and then ask why she left.

I have a good idea why she left, I just want to keep it fresh in the fat fucker's mind.

 

[Mad_Jack_Rabbit]

<SNIP>

Interesting point. I saw an article in the Guardian(?) about "doctored ads" really being put out by the company and not 'internet pranksters.' The idea being that it still puts the company's product/brand name in the mind of the consumer. A cheap and effective (apparently) marketing gimick.

 

[Guest]

Then there's the "Jump on any bandwagon" Troll, like Storm.

The "Fat as a pig but thinks he's hot" Troll, like JMJ.

Hardly.

I disagree with people here often, I'm just not an ass about it.

Log in, Hannsie.

 

[Guest]

Re: Re: Re: Geez . . . I'm Notorious . . .

Typical arrogant Ugly American reply . . . Listen teascup stir . . . I did not ask to be included in this thread, and I reserve my right to defend myself in any way that I feel is appropriate . . . who do you think you are, George Dubyah shrub the world's biggest puppet?? . . . the world's most dangerous provocateur??? Wake up Wanker!!!

See?

 

[Guest]

Hardly.

I disagree with people here often, I'm just not an ass about it.

...and the bandwagon here seems to be jumping on JMJ, and I'm not doing that either. I thought this thread was funny.

Another bandwagon is to ignore unregistereds, but here I am posting to you... so I'm in the minority there, too.

 

[Stout chap]

Mad_Jack_Rabbit, there was a piece in the Private Eye about aggressive marketing by companies. They do all sorts of things to make their products be in your face. Sony employed good-looking people to go around London asking people to take their photograph with Sony's new colour-imaging mobile phone.

 

[Thrillhouse]

No offense to JMJ, but here's a much more complete list of trolls with pictures, even.

 

[The Heretic]

No offense to JMJ, but here's a much more complete list of trolls with pictures, even.

There is a huge difference between trolls and flame warriors, the referenced list being of the latter. We would all recognize aspects of ourselves in some of those descriptions.

 

[The Heretic]

We would all recognize aspects of ourselves in some of those descriptions.

Some people may recognize themselves in this description:

"Evil Clown is very quick with a joke, but his jests always have a barb. He has little patience for in-depth discussions and will often disrupt exchanges between serious forum participants by introducing irrelevant topics, fatuous quips, and offhand comments. His greatest thrill is to taunt and humiliate weaker or more plodding Warriors with his snappy ripostes. When a strong Warrior finally corners him Evil Clown will attempt to escape by accusing his attacker of having no sense of humor."

But giving it further thought, I doubt it; such people generally think of themselves as truly humorous and intelligent people.

 

[bad kitty]

This should be stickied up at the top of the forum. A good read for newbie and oldie alike. I give it 2 thumbs up.

 

[miles]

Donkey, I don't consider you a troll. Just very poorly informed, narrow minded, and paranoid.

70W50 defies description.

pp_man, redwave, and hanns are triplet trolls seperated at birth. pp's disdain for "jews," anyone to the right of the extremist left, and Americans in general is only exceeded by his alcoholism. Redwave and Hanns are the official Masochist Trolls of Lit. They love the abuse thrown at them by writing the dumbest possible posts, then whiniing about how they are treated. When normal people receive negative feedback about their behavior, they change. Not these two.

 

[A Desert Rose]

I never make the list threads and pleased not to do so. This is one I am real pleased to have missed. Thank you, Jim.

 

[Don K Dyck]

Evil Clown??

Donkey, I don't consider you a troll. Just very poorly informed, narrow minded, and paranoid.

70W50 defies description.

pp_man, redwave, and hanns are triplet trolls seperated at birth. pp's disdain for "jews," anyone to the right of the extremist left, and Americans in general is only exceeded by his alcoholism. Redwave and Hanns are the official Masochist Trolls of Lit. They love the abuse thrown at them by writing the dumbest possible posts, then whiniing about how they are treated. When normal people receive negative feedback about their behavior, they change. Not these two.

Geez, Mules . . . did you read Heretic's last post . . . interesting . . . haven't noticed too many changes recently . . . heheheh . . .

 

[Harbinger]

Hey, that was funny, Jim, and worth reading. If being attacked by assholes is any measure of success, I guess you did pretty well. Some people are so predictable.

And Lance, I was starting to think you were growing on me. Was I ever wrong! It was just a really bad foot fungus. I feel so dumb, but it was an honest mistake. It was the smell that made me confuse it with you. No prob, a good soak in boiling Clorox, and it's all better. I bet we all wish every nasty infestation was so easily cured!

really busy, catch you later,


Harbinger