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Then go and correct Wikipedia.

*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.
by DoDo on Tue Dec 9th, 2008 at 06:18:59 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Migeru was citing it, not me.

Were I to do so, someone else would probably alter the fruit of all my labour - life's too short :-)

But I would not try to do so, as it is far easier to see what is wrong with attempted definitions of such terms, than provide an adequate general definition. This is because they have been developed by various people in different contexts with somewhat different views. Cf.


The phrase was originally coined as "Trolling for flames", where the posters intention was to incite a "flame war", the Usenet intellectual equivalent of a bar fight.

But it can vary, some variants being quite harmless, others not:


 Many trolls are just practical jokers attempting to amuse themselves and their audience. Some have genuine animosity toward a particular group or individual that they believe has done them wrong. Some are just loathsome, contemptible hooligans bent on disrupting the ordinarily peaceful exchange of useful information for their own perverted pleasure.

http://groups.google.com/group/alt.troll/msg/bc2e71e19c590d8e




Maybe it's because I'm a Londoner - that I moved to Nice.
by Ted Welch (tedwelch-at-mac-dot-com) on Wed Dec 10th, 2008 at 05:47:27 AM EST
[ Parent ]
[ET Moderation Technology™]

Twank went to close to turning a minor tiff into a major blowup with a needlessly provocative comment (capped with the joke about medication) and I drew the line, end of story.


Most economists teach a theoretical framework that has been shown to be fundamentally useless. -- James K. Galbraith

by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Wed Dec 10th, 2008 at 05:56:31 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Um, too close.

Most economists teach a theoretical framework that has been shown to be fundamentally useless. -- James K. Galbraith
by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Wed Dec 10th, 2008 at 05:59:03 AM EST
[ Parent ]

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