I would not characterize what I do as trolling but I am called a troll so often that there must be some reason.
first, let me describe to you how I find conversations in which to engage. I always prefer to sort by new. not new posts, but new comments. if I’m going to say something I’d like to have a good chance of a person I’m saying it to still being logged in. of course you can’t just watch every new comment that comes into the fediverse. You’re going to have to sort those somehow. personally I have a few keywords that I like to search. I will search for “shill” or maybe “bad faith”. those two are usually a pretty good search term to help you find a contentious argument already happening.
if one of the users is acting egregiously it almost doesn’t matter which side I align with ideologically, I will often call people out for being uncivil. if it’s easy for me to discern within a few comments of the comment that I struck on that one of them is far ideologically misaligned with me and that person is on the receiving end of the incivility, I do sometimes turn a blind eye to that.
now this method is pretty good and finding active conversations that are just generally contentious. I also happen to know a few topics very well and I will search for keywords in those topics that I think I’ve got a pretty good conversation starter for or something that I think often gets overlooked or misrepresented that I can bring some more honest discussion to. if I start describing this I’m afraid that others will instantly recognize who I am and avoid using these keywords on these topics. that would suck. I quite enjoy engaging in this manner.
I would not characterize what I do as trolling but I am called a troll so often that there must be some reason.
first, let me describe to you how I find conversations in which to engage. I always prefer to sort by new. not new posts, but new comments. if I’m going to say something I’d like to have a good chance of a person I’m saying it to still being logged in. of course you can’t just watch every new comment that comes into the fediverse. You’re going to have to sort those somehow. personally I have a few keywords that I like to search. I will search for “shill” or maybe “bad faith”. those two are usually a pretty good search term to help you find a contentious argument already happening.
if one of the users is acting egregiously it almost doesn’t matter which side I align with ideologically, I will often call people out for being uncivil. if it’s easy for me to discern within a few comments of the comment that I struck on that one of them is far ideologically misaligned with me and that person is on the receiving end of the incivility, I do sometimes turn a blind eye to that.
now this method is pretty good and finding active conversations that are just generally contentious. I also happen to know a few topics very well and I will search for keywords in those topics that I think I’ve got a pretty good conversation starter for or something that I think often gets overlooked or misrepresented that I can bring some more honest discussion to. if I start describing this I’m afraid that others will instantly recognize who I am and avoid using these keywords on these topics. that would suck. I quite enjoy engaging in this manner.
I guess AMA.