I link to articles in the Daily Mail because it is easily accessible and they tend to post articles ahead of other online newspapers. I do not derive my views from the Daily Mail though, my views are the product of a working class, Northern upbring. I would not say my views are controversial (outside the confines of the 'world' seemingly inhabited by a few of the more talkative on this forum.



I do not normally resort to bad tempered personal abuse for reasons including (a) I do not feel threatened by the opinions of others. Why should I? Why should any sane individual in the UK?; (b) I do not use alcohol as a crutch to help me hobble through the day; and (c) I was brought up not to make fun of those less able than me and to be humble.

Anyone who uses alcohol as a crutch will invariably fall over.

I can't make up my mind whether Rooster and Dally are tolling.

So just to be sure; you're [isober[/i when you write this stuff?

Depends how big the bottle is

You don't ever "win" an argument with anyone, ever.



What usually happens is that the one who can talk the longest just bores the other to death so that eventually he/she just agrees to get rid of them, its why things like double glazing contracts have a "cooling off" period, the person didn't really want double glazing, they just signed the form to get rid of the boring tw*t who'd just wasted hours of their life in their own living room.



For genuine internet trolls just apply the rule of the pub tap room - decide for yourself whether or not the suspected troll would have the balls to say those things to you, or anyone else, in a crowded pub tap room - the answer will invariably be "no", or at least "no, not without serious injury anyway", and hence, you have your troll*.









* This rule does not apply to the troll formally known as "AP" - he really does say those things in pub tap rooms

Oh, that's a blast from the past.

The thing with the net is you can't convey tone or have a facial expression that says 'hey don't take me serious, this is just a light off the cuff comment'.



What i hate, on here as well as other forums is when you offer an opinion contrary to the popular one and are labelled a troll.



Say being a Wire fan and i venture over to the Wigan forum and offer a genuine opinion and all i get is 'love off troll', winds me up.



The internet seems to be a place of polarized opinion rather than discussion at times.



Don't see why some people fail to acknowledge others opinion because they are different, for me i usually disagree with 70% of Mintys opinions, not because they are wrong just we have a different view on life based on experiences but sometimes, as all humans should, i stand up and applaud some of her views.



Is discussion dead on the internet?

Oh he's still around. Though has been very quiet since the Grand Final.

Except that's also a fairly routine internet posturing excercise too. No doubt the occasional user is also a champion cage fighter and well-disposed to casual and extreme violence but it is a clearly suspect assumption that A could beat B in a fight just because B upsets A. The law of averages alone would suggest that would only be true 50% of the time. The two putative combatants have no idea who or what the other is, much less what "balls" they may have, so in reality you would have no basis for such a decision.



Secondly very many users of the internet who are in no way trolls are likely to be unkeen on violence, and wouldn't even consider that any sort of way to resolve an unpleasant internet exchange would be to kick the schit out of the "troll". So whether they could, or couldn't, is not the point.



Macho posturing is therefore both illogical and, even if you could beat B in a fight, that wouldn't actually mean you had won the intellectual fight, or that B was a troll, or that you weren't. Where would your rule leave people like Stephen Hawking, or Gandhi?

I used to argue in pubs all the time when younger. So, I am clearly not a troll.