a distinguishing feature of trolls is that they enjoy provoking an emotional response in others while on the other hand I find it unsavoury
For what it’s worth, it is very hard to distinguish between someone who is deliberately provoking a negative reaction and someone who is not very practiced at anticipating what choices of language or behavior might cause one. I, like datadataeverywhere, did get the impression that you were at least one of those things; off the top of my head, here are a few specific reasons:
Your initial comment disagreed with my terminology without actually addressing it directly, merely asserting that I was wrong without providing evidence nor argument. This struck me as aggressive and also poorly reasoned.
You persisted in the argument about definition despite, as you later said, not caring about it. I did not continue that thread out of goodwill but out of a desire to resolve the disagreement and return to the original topic—hence stopping and checking in that we were on the same page. That’s why it annoyed me when you said you didn’t care; in that case, I wish we hadn’t wasted the time on it!
Applying the label “social aggressor” in response to someone who is explicitly trying to find out what’s going on in the conversation and steer it somewhere useful. (In fairness, dde suggesting you’re a troll was not necessary either, but the situations are different in that I have not noticed you specifically trying to get the conversation on track.)
Not answering direct questions, especially when they are designed to return the conversation to a productive topic.
I hope I’m not overstepping my bounds by spelling this out; my impression of the LW community is that constructive criticism is encouraged. Therefore, I’m giving you specific suggestions to avoid making a negative impression you seem to not want to make. Conveniently, this will also resolve the ambiguity in my first (non-quoted) sentence in this comment. If you confirm that you want to avoid garnering negative reactions in conversation, it’ll be clear that you are indeed not a troll.
For what it’s worth, it is very hard to distinguish between someone who is deliberately provoking a negative reaction and someone who is not very practiced at anticipating what choices of language or behavior might cause one. I, like datadataeverywhere, did get the impression that you were at least one of those things; off the top of my head, here are a few specific reasons:
Your initial comment disagreed with my terminology without actually addressing it directly, merely asserting that I was wrong without providing evidence nor argument. This struck me as aggressive and also poorly reasoned.
You persisted in the argument about definition despite, as you later said, not caring about it. I did not continue that thread out of goodwill but out of a desire to resolve the disagreement and return to the original topic—hence stopping and checking in that we were on the same page. That’s why it annoyed me when you said you didn’t care; in that case, I wish we hadn’t wasted the time on it!
Applying the label “social aggressor” in response to someone who is explicitly trying to find out what’s going on in the conversation and steer it somewhere useful. (In fairness, dde suggesting you’re a troll was not necessary either, but the situations are different in that I have not noticed you specifically trying to get the conversation on track.)
Not answering direct questions, especially when they are designed to return the conversation to a productive topic.
I hope I’m not overstepping my bounds by spelling this out; my impression of the LW community is that constructive criticism is encouraged. Therefore, I’m giving you specific suggestions to avoid making a negative impression you seem to not want to make. Conveniently, this will also resolve the ambiguity in my first (non-quoted) sentence in this comment. If you confirm that you want to avoid garnering negative reactions in conversation, it’ll be clear that you are indeed not a troll.