Trolls of Lemmy, what is up with that? - eviltoast

I can understand the desire to get as many downvotes as possible on reddit. I don’t sympathize, but I can at least see where people are coming from. Because Reddit gives you that total and shows it to you.

And I’m sure it’s possible to use an API to really that number up on Lemmy, but “total karma” doesn’t seem to be something Lemmy cares about by default, so where is the motivation coming from?

Is it just the same reason people have always been trolls? Because I’ve never quite understood that, either

  • Jojo@lemm.eeOP
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    8 months ago

    Oh, or “just asking questions” and sealioning. I’d pretty much universally consider those to be trolling.

    • Call me Lenny/Leni@lemm.ee
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      8 months ago

      Not sure how dumb a question this is, but could someone give me a ELI5 on this “sealioning”? I am no stranger to being accused of it (perhaps almost 95% of the time by people that are banned by the end of the week), yet I look up the term constantly and the definition always seems like a good thing. It’s almost as if it’s the next big buzzword. Where is the line drawn?

      • Jojo@lemm.eeOP
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        8 months ago

        It’s bad because of the, like, stalking/prodding people until they engage part of it. Just like JAQing, it starts with a pretense of doing no wrong. This means sometimes it’s possible to accuse someone of it when they’re acting in good faith because what they said closely resembles others who have acted in bad faith.

        • Call me Lenny/Leni@lemm.ee
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          8 months ago

          As someone who believes in the concept of benefit of the doubt, this seems against anything I would call someone out for then.

          • Jojo@lemm.eeOP
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            8 months ago

            I’m with you. I wouldn’t think it was happening until it already happened.