Annual Troll Day

March 13, 2014 - By

Let’s face it: as an entire community online we all have to deal with trolls. I propose that once a year we embrace this sub-culture and get it out of our systems. Perhaps this will bring us all to a higher standard for the rest of the year. 

Wikipedia defines trolls as:

In Internet slang, a troll (/ˈtroʊl/, /ˈtrɒl/) is a person who sows discord on the Internet by starting arguments or upsetting people,[1] by posting inflammatory,[2] extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community (such as a forum, chat room, or blog), either accidentally[3][4] or with the deliberate intent of provoking readers into an emotional response[5] or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion.[6]

What I’m proposing is once a year (probably in February when there’s natural angst to burn off anyways) popular publications write posts intentionally to raise our ire, and we take the comments in droves to pick it apart.

Here’s an example:

On February 1st Smashing Magazine faux author Alan Smithee could write a riveting troll-fodder post about the need for the web industry to bring back the <center> tag. I don’t think I even need to finish the example as every web maker reading this is already tempted to troll me for this.

This is like the Guy Fawkes day of the Internet. Dawn your troll mask, pick a trollish pseudonym, and unleash your inner doofus for a day.

…and then let’s just be civil the rest of the year.

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This post was written by ArleyM