Moderating (monitoring and policing) on the internet CAN work, but it costs.
I would vote in a heartbeat to instantly convert at least this category of YA into a pay per use site, with CLEAR and ENFORCED rules on relevancy, civility, etc., and on amount of use (i.e. limit length and number of posts, so that rich people couldn't dominate).
I would bet money that less than 10% of users here would agree with that, and it is almost inconceivable that Yahoo would even entertain the possibility.
I have the strong suspicion that Yahoo developed this site as a loss leader, that most of their investment was in setting it up, that for the last few years it has been a very low priority for them, that their goal is to have it break even, and that as long as it does, more or less, they will keep it going with minor revisions and minimal maintenance, and should it ever go more than a bit into the red for a sustained period of time, or if there is a shakeup or takeover of the company resulting in a dislike of it, they will swiftly kill it.
I expect nothing to ever be done about trolls. The BS "community reporting" is their token bow to that.
P.S. Suggestion: Proof your question and details before submitting to avoid the sort of cut-and-paste tossed salad that has afflicted the top here.
P.PS. To more directly address your question: I would say, in my experience over about the last four years here, and using the above definition of "troll," most troll-posts come from deniers, most deniers are not trolls, but a few annoying ones are, and, in a much more limited but crucial sense, all of the hard-core deniers are also trolls in that they consciously strive to disinform, deceive, and lie about science. And this is their main reason for being here. Not to ask, not to answer, not to learn, but to sabotage asking, answering and learning. Once in a blue moon, there is a post that accepts climate science, but takes issue with the way it is presented in the news media, or interpreted by politicians or agitated for by environmental or other special interest groups, but this is extremely rare here, and fairly rare now even in general discourse in the United States (though much less rare elsewhere). This is not a long-standing condition, however.
Most of the deniers here (by all indications mostly older male North Americans), came to the climate issue too recently to remember this, but during the 1990s in the U.S., there was a fairly energetic debate over the Kyoto treaty -that is to say, a debate over climate POLICY (NOT science)- and while there was a typical shoveling of propaganda (and from BOTH sides, although not equally so), denial of science, while certainly present, was not the core argument of the anti-Kyoto politicians and commentators. That sort of dynamic has RADICALLY changed (for a bunch of reasons too complex to fully elaborate here, but I will offer a few thoughts) over the past decade and a half. (You could correlate it timing-wise with a collective public dumbing-down with the Bush Administration's "response" following the 9-11 attacks, but that is more coincidence than causation.) And nowhere is this shift more blatant than on unrestricted Wild West sectors of the internet. The deniers here seem not only too ignorant, feeble-minded and pigheaded to conceive of arguing based on something OTHER than lying about science, most of them seem constitutionally incapable of it.
That partly reflects a deep ignorance about what science is (largely shared by the general public, unfortunately), and is partly typical human herd-instinct, but there also seems to be an even more powerful psychological factor. They don't just hate climate science, and fear it, and hate their own ignorance of it, they seem to have the preconceived fixed idea that it MUST be evil, or fraudulent, or hopelessly biased (and so much so as to justify incredible tirades of dishonesty and trickery to "expose" it and fight it with all means, fair or foul). One seminal source is indicated here: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/arc... This is not a lie about science (only), it is (mainly) a lie about history. I have often posted links to the history of climate science. Such as this one: http://www.aip.org/history/climate/index... I doubt whether more than a handful of people here have ever even looked at them. I am highly confident that none of the deniers here has much of a clue about that history. One alternative prism (to the full history) is to look at how other countries debate these issues. North America is an outlier. The denier mania has spread globally of course, but in most other democracies it is a fringe element. I don't know of another major democratic country where a majority party or coalition of parties in the national legislature is as committed to denying science as the United States. It wasn't true in America either until a few years ago.
I have noticed a difference just over about the past two years in this category. A great dumbing-down, you might say. Or a creeping trollification. This question would have been a bit odd four years ago. There were heated debates, but "troll" was reserved for fairly rare usage. There might have been some "trolls" already then in the top ten best answerer list, but they kept their trolling traits in check. That has changed, and this question, unfortunately, is now very relevant.
P.S. JimZ proves my point. Calling the century old science of man-made climate change "unproved claims" is one of the most outrageous lies ever uttered in human history. JimZ has more BAs than any other anti-science poster in this category, and his main purpose here is to promote that lie. He is, however, not a "troll" in most senses of your definition, although his post here, like many of his, mainly consists of off-topic insults. There are many incorrect statements made on this site, but JimZ's main intention is indeed deliberate deception. The resolved or "reference" questions show this many times over, but you can see it right here on this page. Aerosols (colloid of fine solid particles or liquid droplets) causing cooling does not disprove CO2 (odorless gas) causing warming, and never did "many scientists" argue that. JimZ knows this but tries anyway to cover his big lie about "unproven" science with a little deceitful insinuation of inconsistency within climate science.
How about climate science getting their act together and stop being so politically motivated? It would cut down on trolling because people would "know" better. Trolls would be simply ignored.
" ... “Not one of our better forecasts,” admits Mike Halpert, the Climate Prediction Center’s acting director. The center grades itself on what it calls the Heidke skill score, which ranges from 100 (perfection) to -50 (monkeys throwing darts would have done better). October’s forecast for the three-month period of November through January came in at -22. Truth be told, the September prediction for October-December was slightly worse, at -23. ... "
I know someone at work who is a troll he don't have any social skills he causes trouble at work by stirring up trouble between people , he don't have any true friends , he doesn't no how to problem solve and gets a big kick out of seeing people at there lowest which tells me he has no empathy and also makes fun of the inflicted , which is sick so maybe they all are like that. So my conclusion is there not happy with then selves and are not happy in life because to go out of your way to do something like that is sad, and also everything he says is right and you can't reason with him so to me trolls are very opinionated of them selves.
You asked: "Are they denying or just trolls?"
Is it safe to assume that the "they" in your question are the CAGW Alarmists who are not able to Man-Up and deny the existence of unmanipulated, scientific data that supports the notion of CAGW??
Just curious.
I think trolls are obnoxious people that disagree with you (e.g Dook is a troll to me but probably not to you). I am skeptical of their findings except to say Duh, people that disagree cause more disagreements.
I think some people like to control speech and most alarmists are likely a subsection of that group. They want to have the power to deny free speech to anyone that disagrees with them. Dook is a great example.
He blocks anyone that disagrees with him because he can't articulate his arguments, and he only offer insults.
Dook suggests,
<<
Dook clearly has the capacity to speak English yet he chooses gibberish
<<<"And nowhere is this shift more blatant than on unrestricted Wild West sectors of the internet. The deniers here seem not only too ignorant, feeble-minded and pigheaded to conceive of arguing based on something OTHER than lying about science, most of them seem constitutionally incapable of it">>>
Insulting people that are skeptical of unproved claims isn't a scientific argument.
Note: Century old climate science. Now that is a good joke. I didn't think Dook had a sense of humor. In the 1970s many scientists believed fossil fuel emissions (aerosols) were causing the cooling. In fact Dook's century old climate science uses models that failed to predict reality nearly every time yet he selectively chooses to believe "climate science" as anything that supports his notion that humans are bad and must be causing damage to the planet.
Definition of lie:
ie
1 [lahy] Show IPA
noun
1.
a false statement made with deliberate intent to deceive; an intentional untruth;
No Dook, I don't lie. I may not always be correct but that is a different thing.
If you believe in what you are saying, you are not a troll, trolls set out to be malicious and hurtful, much different than deniers,
So let me get this straight. You are talking about trolls having the effect of POLARIZING the views instead of increasing understanding of the science.
BUT, you are also assuming that everyone who disagrees with your view, is a troll, which is an EXTREMELY polarized view that does nothing to increase the understanding of the science. You are further assuming that all who disagree with you are sadists.
This seems to be a combination of red herring, ad hominem, strawman, begging the question, sweeping generalization fallacy.
I am actually impressed that you can fit so many fallacies into one question.
Hey dook,
Seriously??? You unblock me, then reblock me??? You claim to care about science and truth??? PULLEASE. Your actions speak novels about how much you care about truth.
Also, I was here 4 years ago. Back then, there were more posters and they were less knowledgable on the topic. If anything, there are LESS trolls here now, than 4 years ago.
Do you really not remember all of the people who came here, showed a link to an Al Gore video and claimed we should be scared of the future???
Blue Marble
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New Study: Internet Trolls Are Often Machiavellian Sadists
―By Chris Mooney
| Fri Feb. 14, 2014 3:00 AM GMT
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In the past few years, the science of Internet trollology has made some strides. Last year, for instance, we learned that by hurling insults and inciting discord in online comment sections, so-called Internet "trolls" (who are frequently anonymous) have a polarizing effect on audiences, leading to politicization, rather than deeper understanding of scientific topics.
That's bad, but it's nothing compared with what a new psychology paper has to say about the personalities of so-called trolls themselves. The research, conducted by Erin Buckels of the University of Manitoba and two colleagues, sought to directly investigate whether people who engage in trolling are characterized by personality traits that fall in the so-called "Dark Tetrad": Machiavellianism (willingness to manipulate and deceive others), narcissism (egotism and self-obsession), psychopathy (the lack of remorse and empathy), and sadism (pleasure in the suffering of others).
It is hard to underplay the results: The study found correlations, sometimes quite significant, between these traits and trolling behavior. What's more, it also found a relationship between all Dark Tetrad traits (except for narcissism) and the overall time that an individual spent, per day, commenting on the Internet.
In the study, trolls were identified in a variety of ways. One was by simply asking survey participants what they "enjoyed doing most" when on online comment sites, offering five options: "debating issues that are important to you," "chatting with others," "making new friends," "trolling others," and "other." Here's how different responses about these Internet commenting preferences matched up with responses to questions designed to identify "Dark Tetrad" traits:
E.E. Buckels et al, "Trolls just want to have fun," Personality and Individual Differences, 2014.
To be sure, only 5.6 percent of survey respondents actually specified that they enjoy "trolling." By contrast, 41.3 percent of Internet users were "non-commenters," meaning they didn't like engaging online at all. So trolls are, as has often been suspected, a minority of online commenters, and an even smaller minority of overall Internet users.
The researchers conducted multiple studies, using samples from Amazon's Mechanical Turk but also of college students, to try to understand why the act of trolling seems to attract this type of personality. They even constructed their own survey instrument, which they dubbed the "Global Assessment of Internet Trolling" or GAIT, comprised of the following items:
I have sent people to shock websites for the lulz.
I like to troll people in forums or the comments section of websites.
I enjoy griefing other players in multiplayer games.
The more beautiful and pure a thing is, the more satisfying it is to corrupt.
Yes, some people actually say they agree with such statements. And again, doing so was correlated with sadism in its various forms, with psychopathy, and with Machiavellianism. Overall, the authors found that the relationship between sadism and trolling was the strongest, and that indeed, sadists appear to troll because they find it pleasurable. "Both trolls and sadists feel sadistic glee at the distress of others," they wrote. "Sadists just want to have fun...and the Internet is their playground!"
The study comes as websites, particularly at major media outlets, are increasingly weighing steps to rein in trollish behavior. Last year Popular Science did away with its comments sections completely, citing research on the deleterious effects of trolling, and YouTube also took measures to rein in trolling.
But Erin Buckles of the University of Manitoba, the study's first author, actually isn't sure that fix is a realistic one. "Because the behaviors are intrinsically motivating for sadists, comment moderators will likely have a difficult time curbing trolling with punishments (e.g., banning users)," she commented by email. "Ultimately, the allure of trolling may be too strong for sadists, who presumably have limited opportunities to express their sadistic interests in a socially-desirable manner."
