Shameless Plug and shameless Troll

Trolling is a verb meaning to trail a hook in the water and see if some fish will bite. I think that's the origin of the usenet term: "A troll" is a needlessly provocative post, and the term has evolved to refer to the troller, too.

As a noun, "one who trolls", it overlaps nicely with the Norwegian term.

John

in article snipped-for-privacy@posting.google.com, Rune Allnor at snipped-for-privacy@tele.ntnu.no wrote on 12/02/2004 07:00:

....

like a lot of terms on the internet, "troll" has a multifaceted etymology. another root has to do with fishing, particularly "trolling". the troll or "troller" has cast a line or a net and is just seeing what kinds of and how many "fish" in the vast sea he'll pick up.

r b-j

Have you read Terry Pratchett's 'Discworld' series? The trolls in that are stupid and lumbering but sometimes amiable. But when it gets REALLY cold... well, they are a silicon-based life form- the noise level goes down- they become intelligent and quick. Getting dangerously on-topic here!

Paul Burke

Don't forget to add that they post lengthy off topic messages...

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Con-troll yourself! What kind of acronym is TUAD?

Jerry

-- Engineering is the art of making what you want from things you can get. ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯

An open letter to the internet from Trolls United Against Defamation:

First an introduction - what I'd like to talk about are "Trolls" - we've been much maligned over the years but we've decided to come out from under our 'bridges' and once again take our rightful place in society.

Many of you older readers may remember the friendly little man who lived under the courthouse steps in your home town, he was a well-liked and respected member of the community, your parents approved of his occupation and understood that "it was a tough job, but someone had to do it". In small town America in the '50s no one questioned the valuable place your local trolls played in society.

Readers who grew up in the '60s may remember being distraught by Oppie's special friend Max's sudden disappearance from Mayberry after the actor who played him was blacklisted following the McCarthy hearings.

Let me try and explain the whole sordid story as briefly as possible. It all started with what we trolls commonly refer to as "that goat incident". Back in the spring of 1964 there were wild press reports from Eastern Europe about a poor hungry troll eating some goats who woke him up while sleeping under a bridge - naturally the press blew it way out of proportion, someone noticed that not only were there trolls behind the iron curtain, but here in the US too - Joe McCarthy (a lawyer!) came out of retirement and started up 'HURT' the 'House Unamerican Reaction to Trolls' - Trolls were subpoenaed, question, publicly vilified and driven from their occupations all across the country, in the south trolls were driven from town by the KKK on horseback. Those trolls whom survived moved to the wilder parts of the country to hide out, some even moved north to Canada.

At the time our knowledge of ecology and ecosystems was not great enough for anybody to predict the horrible results this would cause. As the Soviets were finding out by the '60s if you take away it's usual prey a predator will turn elsewhere. They banned lawyers in most communist countries, which of course explains the plight of that poor hungry troll under that bridge that started this whole mess.

After banning Trolls the US is now suffering from a most horrible scourge. Just like removing the wolves from Yellowstone resulted in Elk herds that multiplied out of control and devastated the grazing for all other species, taking your local troll out from his usual place below the courthouse steps has resulted in lawyers multiplying completely out of control with dire consequences to all parts of society.

We intend to once again become the respected useful members of society our parents and grandparents were. And after much soul-searching we realized that we would need good legal council. As you might imagine this was hard to come by, so we decided that we needed to train some of our own people in the law. I, and my colleagues, worked our way through law school, it was hard, we suffered under much discrimination from the faculty, we spent long nights suffering working through the law books, and days resisting temptation in class. In the end we graduated top of our class - in fact in that year we were the only ones who surv^H^H^H^Hgraduated. We moved into private practice as "Troll, Troll, Troll and Bandicoot" mostly doing civil rights law for other trolls. Recently you may have heard of the very substantial out of court settlement we received from the Tolkien estate in our libel case. We intend to use this money to fund future legal work for our clients.

Which brings me to the main purpose of this letter .... it has come to our attention that some people on the internet have been using the name 'troll' in a negative, derogatory manner. This must stop immediately. Along with our co-litigants the Spam Industry Council we are today serving a class action suit, on behalf of all trolls everywhere, on all people who have participated in the practice of 'trolling'.

We were lucky that the law firm of Canter&Siegel after some initial reluctance were yum^H^H^H able to help us in searching the Usenet archives to discover the perpetrators and to electronically serve all those who were found responsible.

I hope that this will be the end of this matter.

Thank you for your attention

Timothy T. Troll Attorney at Law Troll, Troll, Troll, and Bandicoot

--------------------------------------------------------------------- Trolls United will never be defeated - take a lawyer to lunch

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Dear Mr Troll,

Thank you for bringing the plight of the troll to our attention. I always thought that being a troll was something that you aspired to, that it took hard work and years of practice.

I never knew that trolls are hardwired. I will try to be kind to trolls in the future. Even so, you do understand that I don't want my daughter to date one.

-- Al Clark Danville Signal Processing, Inc.

-------------------------------------------------------------------- Purveyors of Fine DSP Hardware and other Cool Stuff Available at

Guy Macon wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@corp.supernews.com:

Dear Troll,

I am awfully sorry for any derogatory impression any writings of mine, even if factually accurate, might have had on your clients. May I be so bold to suggest that your client's less than ideal life situation does not follows as much from my and my peer's writings, as from the derived effects from a third-party commodity.

The commodity I suspect might be the basic cause of you client's inconveniences, is generally known to cause radaition effects world-wide, particularly in the 400 - 700 nm wavelengths, with severe consequences for most life forms on this planet. The commodity has been known to cause severe instability of local weather patterns, it even influences the hydrolgic circulation patterns, thus having severe effects on the water distribution world-wilde. It might not come as any surprise that this commodity is based on nuclear power generation, with all its associated downsides.

The commodity in question has been represented by several agents at different times and different geographical locations. The agents of north-eastern Africa were Aton and Ra, later followed by Helios in Greece. Apparently, the Greek franchise was transferred to Apollon of Italy later on. Due to unclear legal paperwork, it is some doubt whether Heimdall had a franchise in northern Europe. You might find it interesting to know that certain Asian countries claimed national affiliations to the commodity until very recently.

It is well-known that said commodity shows certain cyclic behaviour, particularly in northern regions. It might be reasonable to believe that the commodity may have severe implications on your clients' social and intellectual perhaps less than ideal situation.

Based on the above, it is evident that said commodity have had severe effects on the lives and well-being of most life orms on this planet, including your clients. May I suggest you bring your clients to a convention for reviewing the underlying material of my considerations. I will not be able to attend in person, but it appears that central Algeria would be a nice plase to have such a convention, more particularly at high noon, June 23rd next.

I am confident that if such a convention is held at the time and place suggested, your clients' poblems will cease to exist.

Rune

(snip)

Rune, That saga must have been the one we read at primary school in Australia. Thanks for educating me on the wider world of Trolls. Interestingly, the folk tale you described reminds me very much of some of the Australian Aboriginal myths.

Regards, John