Okay. I'm not a troll. Though my best buddy Andy might disagree with that assessment. Some might call me an ogre. But that's a different animal.

What is a troll? What characterizes a troll? What is the difference between an avid non-Doomer and a Troll? Seems to me the distinction has become a bit blurred as of late.

-- Chicken Little (panic@forthebirds.net), October 30, 1999

Answers

Trolls are the kind of people that start a thread for no other reason than to precipitate an overblown debate about a totally worthless subject like "What is a troll?"

Andy calls you a troll, others call you an ogre. If you say that an ogre is a "different animal" than a troll than this leads me to conclude that you must have a pretty good idea of what a troll is, so your intent in starting this thread is to engage in a pointless argument about a meaningless subject and thus, you've answered your own question, and Andy is right... YOU are a troll!

-- Hawk (flyin@high.again), October 30, 1999.

It's a question of sincerity Chicken. They come with varying degrees of ability and style but the singularly lacking quality common is sincerity. Consider:

The goofy ones set out a hopelessly implausable scenario of need then ask for advice and counsel. Or, ask a contrived question to which some responses will invariably be controversial. Guns, starvation and such.

Next are those intelectually challenged but don't know it. They try their best wordsmithing to to lay traps that fall into circular arguments that clearly can have only opinions not answers.

Last and worst are the shameless selfservers blasting their accusations and crudities praying to be center stage for a moment.

You asked so I tried to answer, but, you knew the answer. Right? An up front polly is welcome here, but you knew that too. Sincerity, remember?

-- Carlos (riffraff1@cybertime.net), October 30, 1999.

10-4, Carlos. Ground rules just seem to be an issue here lately.

I don't say a damn thing here I don't mean sincerely. Yet ol' buddy Andy just termed me a 'troll' on another thread, so I just wanted to get a general definition of what a 'troll' is. That's all. Re-orientation, so to speak. Thanks for the comments. Well taken.

Hawk: KMA. Know My Attitude, before you go cluelessly trying to divine it.

It ain't no secret that I'm an anti-Doomer. But I'm honest about it.

-- Chicken Little (panic@forthebirds.net), October 30, 1999.

Chicken mentioned

"What is the difference between an avid non-Doomer and a Troll?"

IMHO of course, but someone like Hoff that tries to support his position would be a "avid non-Doomer" and that jonny dounut guy would be a troll adding nothing important but contrivercy.

Now a more important question would be what is a good thread.

Many would say that the thread below was troll inspired but there was an attempt at supporting an idea that is important. When is to much preps over doing it. (never enough TP :o)

There will be some good to come of Y2K yet, I just know it.

What I don't like is shallow claims with little basis in fact. Both sides are guilty in this aspect. Y2K is a research intensive subject and blind assurances aren't going to cut it. There are just to many variables to worry about for anyone to be complaicent.

Also Y2K problems are going to be based on location for a large part. Just because an "avid non-Doomer" or troll may feel secure it won't help the single mother with kids if a crisis strikes. It is this heartlessness that disturbs me the most. If all communities had a support structure to help the less the fortunate in any type of situation then the y2k fears would be minimized. But this is not achieved by idiotic posts of ridicule by "trolls" that discourage Y2K awareness and preperation.

I have lived in many parts of Canada where failure of gas or power for what ever reason will mean death in the middle of winter for those that are weaker. Many parts of the States may have the same problem. This is no joke. I would love to find out just how resilient some of you pollies would be in a harsh enviorment. The arctic fronts are no place for a plucked cluck you know.

Anyway you have asked a risky question there Chicken and no doubt some flames are going to be coming your way so

I would duck cluck. (couldn't resist)

And remember keep your liners dry.

-- Brian (imager@home.com), October 30, 1999.

Chicken,

I have seen your attitude on other threads, and how you take an anti- doomer stance because we presume to say that we think Y2K will be worse than your little hurricane.

Knowing your attitude does not change my answer to your question. You don't have to like it, but it IS my opinion nonetheless. My answer is that you yourself are a troll and you have proven this to me by starting this stupid thread and insisting on carrying on this completely pointless debate.

Like it or lump it, I don't care.

And, by the way... K.M.A.

(*V*)

-- Hawk (flyin@high.again), October 30, 1999.

Chicken, Maybe Andy's defination is wider than mine but seriously, being called a troll pales next to a hachet. Beef up on that winter down. Reminds me. Some trolls post just to creat the opportunity to later carp about being abused. You've seen 'em.

-- Carlos (riffraff1@cybertime.net), October 30, 1999.

A Chicken Haiku

For my feathered troll

Cluck cluck f#*ku

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), October 30, 1999.

Hey Chix;

You seem to have a troll on/off mode. Some times you have a good argument supporting your side of the issues, other times you are like a loose cannon. I don't mind, I enjoy plucking chickens every now and then. As for the pollies, passion in a debate is good, when there are facts to back it up.

-- FLAME AWAY (BLehman202@aol.com), October 30, 1999.

Hawk, Chicken's "little" hurricane was also MY little hurricane, except I wasn't directly affected. Its effects began just 30 miles east of where I live, changing people and places I know with the most devastating results the victims and their neighbors have ever experienced. This was NOT a little hurricane, it was The End of Their World as They Knew It for the victims, many will never recover from it, and Chicken was justifiably affected by it. Please don't minimize it.

Chicken got his hands very dirty doing lFoyd relief work--dangerous work, risking injury, disease, drowning, animal bites, and God knows what. He's seen a lot of misery, anguish and pain and lost some friends to the floodwaters (15 feet deep in some towns). He deserves a bit of respect and a little slack.

I don't go along with Chicken's attitude most of the time and I do think he's a bit of a troll, but at least he's bloody sincere and an otherwise good person, which is much more than I can say for a number of people who like to put the cat among the pigeons over here. I think Chicken is beginning to see we're not all out to sell goods and services or frighten people to death.

Chicken, c'mon, I think we've got more in common than not. Bite your tongue a bit, will ya? Don't be so prickly. You going to be up this way any time soon? I want you to meet the Hungarian's menagerie. Or maybe not--she can be pricklier than you! (Think Zsa Zsa with a bad atittude.)

-- Old Git (anon@spamproblems.com), October 30, 1999.

hey chicken,

When did that 3 day hurricane come through again??? Did recovery take about 3 days???? How long has it been? Is everything back to normal yet??

-- y2k dave (xsdaa111@hotmail.com), October 30, 1999.

Y2k Dave, did that panic you predicted to start in September materialize? Or did you mean next September?

-- memories (all@we.have), October 30, 1999.

And good morning MZ. Chicken Little,,, Are we caught up in the parts dept again? It is so nice to see your usually award winning whitty,acidic self again. One would think that you would cease saying "mirror, mirror on the wall...Who's the Trolliest of them all?" But no...You seem to take great delight in letting your verbal derrier hang out. Built any more generation stations? Oh! I ment to say, Toyotas-or chevys. Or an attempt at hidding under another's bridge again?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Shakey~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

-- Shakey (in_a_bunker@forty.feet), October 30, 1999.

Trolls, ogres -- can't we be more creative around Halloween? This Forum has been assualted by orcs, dragons, demons, jokers, vampires, clowns, spooks, werewolves, and sheep :-)

Your turn

-- Ashton & Leska in Cascadia (allaha@earthlink.net), October 30, 1999.

Mr. Chicken,

Would you be so kind as to answer a few questions for me? I would like to know if you think the following post is from a troll?

"READING YOUR REACTION ABOVE BROUGHT ONE FROM ME:

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHHA!!!!!!!

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAH!!!!!!

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAAH!!!!!!

P.S. IF YOU THINK NOW IS BAD, JUST WAIT UNTILL NEXT JANURARY WHEN Y2K TURNS OUT NOT !!! TO BE TEOTWAWKI!!!

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAAH!!!!!!!

GO TROLLS GO!!!! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHHAH!!!!!!!
-- GENIUS (CODESLINGER@WORK.NOW), October 29, 1999.

I would also be interested in your further elaboration as to why this is or is not a troll.

Thank you in advance for your considered reply...

-- (RUOK@yesiam.com), October 30, 1999.

"Next are those intelectually challenged but don't know it. They try their best wordsmithing to to lay traps that fall into circular arguments that clearly can have only opinions not answers. " Carlos

IMHO, we all fit this category, relatively speeking. Each of us have our own opinion to defend, and each of us have varying degrees of intellectual capacity, education and social ways to communicate, i.e. etiquette.

As for "circular arguments that clearly can have only opinions not answers", it is to me self-evident that it is what this forum has been from the start, and its purpose. Y2K has no "clear answers", the clear answers will come after the roll-over. Debating opinions as well as collecting news and facts are all necessary activities for us individuals with an interest in Y2K, to decide for ourselves if and how much to prepare. (And the fact that this forum exists has fullfilled its role in allerting people to Y2K.)

But all in all I agree with you Carlos. Sincerity or the lack of it is what defines each of us. In that sense then, to me what has become popularly labeled "a troll" is someone with an agenda to manipulate others into believing what they believe themselves, using emotional and disruptive tactics. Therefore, if we use this definition, we can say that there are trolls equally in both camps, "doomers" and "pollys".

Then there are the people who are looking for answers, with open minds, and debate their positions in a civilized manner. Those people IMO have been crowded out of this forum by the "trollish" types in both camps lately.

There used to be on this forum a clearer understanding of what a "troll" was, but the epithet has evolved in meaning over time as more and more newcomers joined. I used to think and still do, of a troll as someone who has no clear opinion on Y2K and posts something clearly outside the "norm" and conventions of the forum (ex:, tYPiNG iN ThIS mAnNEr OR=THIS;ONE!), or acts as psychoticly deranged, or attempts to disrupt the mechanics of the forum with malicious HTML/Java, or impersonates another well established poster for malicious intent, or uses combinations of the above. I haven't seen any such posts from you Chicken Little, therefore I've never thought of you as a troll.

Labelling IMO is but a scare tactic. This forum has been using the troll, doomer, and polly epithets rather loosely and profusely. The troll epithet I think is viewed as the most undesirable, and so will be used on those that are seen as undesirable by the opposite camp, in this forum's case those at the higher end of the 1-10 Y2K scale will tend to slap the label quicker on those at the lower end, in an attempt to drive them off this forum, effectively silencing their opinions.

This was my sincere $.2

-- Chris (#$%^&@pond.com), October 30, 1999.

One more observation and question, Mr. Chicken: Here is a post from today. Please note that the poster who uses the handle "zoobie" does not normally capitalize his handle, yet this particular post has the handle "ZOOBIE". See if you think the following post bears a certain resemblance to the one copied above:

"AAAARRRRRRGGGGGGHHHH!!!!!!!!!!MY ASS!!!!!MY ASSSS!!I'M BLEEEEEEDINGGGGG!!!
-- ZOOBIE (zoobiezooob@yahoo.com), October 30, 1999."

If this post is not from "zoobie" (no caps), do you think the person who posted it is a troll?

-- (RUOK@yesiam.com), October 30, 1999.

that one was funny in context though

-- still laughing (who@cares.who?), October 30, 1999.

Psicop would get involved if here were anything that were really difficult to DEBUNK. TEOTAWKI is one of those light weight things that have been disproved. Look, planes will not fall from the sky, your government payments will arrive on time, your money IS SAFE in the bank, almost all of the mission critical systems ARE compliant. There may be minor disruptions. It is prudent to prepare for a three day storm. Most of the people that post contrarian views are not trolls. A troll is anyone who rains on their paranoid fantasies of gloom. The only evidence that they can provide is from mostly negative sources. Undoubtedly, some of the gloomers will try to use violence to bring these events to pass and they will and should be processed into the justice system where they belong. Many will realize that they have bought into a lie and will get along with their lives.

-- jb smith (joebobsmith@yahoo.com), October 30, 1999.

Thank you for your input jb smith. And to that I reply that if one changes the words "doom" and "doomer" to "optimistic" and "polly" and "negative" to "positive" in your statements above, the same can be said to be true by people who have a different vantage point and means to view the world.

-- Chris (#$%^&@pond.com), October 30, 1999.

I am around systems quite a bit. I have talked to several systems administrators, some of which are family. Not one single person has said that there system is going to be a problem.

-- jb smith (joebobsmith@yahoo.com), October 30, 1999.

then your family are cousin-retards.

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), October 30, 1999.

jb

You seem like a well spoken optimistic type. How would you explain the following links? Specially the Enron Y2K disclosure. While you can say that folks are pulling doom rabbits out of a hat, there is no shortage of relevant documents from good sources that don't share your view. Now possibly, maybe you have a bias that you accuse others of? I am not saying the end of the world will happen but serious problems could exist.

 October 21, 1999 Texas A&M Report on Chemical Companies

  ENRON --- This one will make your hair stand on end !

 *****Senate 100 Day Report in HTML*****

-- Brian (imager@home.com), October 30, 1999.

I have seen minor problems first hand. Some of the problems might even be serious. It is still my humble opinion that the biggest problem we face is perception. A year ago I was much more pessimistic. Much has been done in the last year. Many of the problems have been fixed and undoubtedly many still remain. The real question here is to what degree will these problems affect us. Perception is a good percentage of the game. I have prepared in my own way. I sugest that everyone should be prepared all of the time. By the way Andy, I don't have to call names to make my point.

-- jb smith (joebobsmith@yahoo.com), October 31, 1999.

this is probably pertinent here. ONE of the things i do hereabouts is excise trolls. It would be no surprise to the CRITICAL reader that I end up deleting more "doomer" trolls than "poly" trolls.

Chuck

-- Chuck, a night driver (rienzoo@en.com), November 01, 1999.