What's Worse: Trolling or Spamming?

[Mariley]

Trolling is far more annoying to me personally. They are intentionally being jerks just to get a rise out of someone. Spammers aren't great either, but generally they aren't as outright malicious about it.

 

[ShadowDiety]

Spamming for sure. They're more common and trolls can be funny sometimes.

 

[Ronin]

Spamming can get out of hand so I say spamming is worse.

I've actually rarely spamming get out of control. But if it ever did, then the solution was always very simple, at least on the forums and news sites I've visited: Report the spam and move on. The moderators will remove the comments and even block the spammer if necessary.

Trolling, on the other hand, is by far harder to put down. Unlike spamming (typically the guy just leaves a three messages or five before he's shut down), trolling is persistent and typically held in good fun, if only for a time. In actuality, trolls do their business to inflame the regular members which leads to them prompting him most of the time. Again, the best way to deal with a troll is by reporting them. The mods block as usual, and if he comes back then they can keep on blocking him until he gets tired of the charade. It's also important that members don't encourage him with insults; if he's given nothing to say then he'll run out of things to say.

And if back-up's needed...then you can always call on me.

 

[Kaynil]

Spamming can get out of hand so I say spamming is worse.

And trolling cannot get out of hand? Both can get out of hand and I think at least for staff point of view that cleaning the mess is way easier with spammers than trolls.

I have see communities I cared for change forever and even close because of one or two rotten apple. Bulk deleting messages is easy, but you can't click delete and pretend nothing happen when some people in your community feels hurts or decided to leave because of what was said or done. When a good, well established, active member leaves willingly, he or she leaves behind a void, a feeling of helpless for the staff that fees responsible and a feel of insecurity in the remaining members hard to put aside. Some communities after that find that more members follow suit and leave (announcing it or not), despise the 'rot troll' problem being dealt with already and I have seen more than a few forums closing afterwards.

You could say an exaggerated amount of spam could move members to stop coming too, but most of the time such amounts are already showing the staff is not around to bging with, with trolls, staff can be 'enough' and active and still cab't prevent some of the damage.

 

[onidarklink2]

I'd say trolling > spamming. Trolling at least requires some intelligence and is often quite funny and entertaining whereas spamming is just mindlessly posting crap. Also, trolls aren't that bad if you know how to deal with them; spammers are just plain annoying and there really isn't any way to deal with them without the help of a mod.

 

[Trio the Punch]

I'm going to say that spamming is far worse than trolling. I like trolling; even though it may be annoying it is tons of fun to do and is usually funny from the other side (as long as you can a joke). Spamming, on the other hand, is just obnoxious. It is never funny, and there is no one who doesn't get pissed when it happens.

 

[Johnny Sooshi]

And if back-up's needed...then you can always call on me.

That is very true Sir Thareous of the Troll Smiters!

I forgot about your troll smiting days

 

[Cel-Shaded Deku]

Wow this thread reached two pages in a few hours. There are some great arguments for why trolling is worse, but my position hasn't changed because of personal experience. I see spam so frickin' much and sometimes it drives me crazy.

 

[theoathtoorder]

Trolls suck. They post comments every now and then on my Zelda videos from YT and usually they have no videos themselves to make the criticism valid. It's like asking an anonymous person on the net for medical advice. From behind a mighty screen they can webmd it and act like they're some expert. Same with trolls. I must admit, it is humorous for me to imagine what life they must live to put bad karma out there like that.

 

[feraldonkey]

Both are irritable, especially when people post tiny little comments to increase post count. If I had to narrow down the worst it would probably be trolling though.

 

[Honorable Hero]

Trolling, definitely. They're often out just to flame people. World needs less bullies.

 

[DeletedUser9]

Trolls don't continue if you ignore them (for the most part). If they do it's easy to troll them back, provided your better at it. That usually ends them.

Spammers NEVER stop. They don't care. Trolls are like your one friend who messes around all the time but has no bad intentions. Spammers are those annoying kids who won't leave you alone.

As I have said, trolling in the truest sense does not have good intentions. It is the definition of malicious behavior; you have a misunderstanding on what the term applies to, which is probably the fault of how loose the term's come to be used.

Axle, the problem here is that while you've modded multiple forums some of us have no experience with that at all. We can't just delete it. Yes there is a report button but we don't have the control you mods have and mods may not always agree with a spam call.

You're assuming that I've moderated every forum I've been on? No; there are tons of sites and forums I go to where I have no position of authority whatsoever and it has never modified my stance in the slightest.

I'd say trolling > spamming. Trolling at least requires some intelligence and is often quite funny and entertaining whereas spamming is just mindlessly posting crap. Also, trolls aren't that bad if you know how to deal with them; spammers are just plain annoying and there really isn't any way to deal with them without the help of a mod.

Trolling is only ever entertaining when you're not on the receiving end or the person is willing to troll back; trolling is by definition harassment.

I'm going to say that spamming is far worse than trolling. I like trolling; even though it may be annoying it is tons of fun to do and is usually funny from the other side (as long as you can a joke). Spamming, on the other hand, is just obnoxious. It is never funny, and there is no one who doesn't get pissed when it happens.

Read what I said above; it's tons of fun to do because you're the one doing it. The only reason you could conceivably thing it's funny on the receiving side is if you're fond of trolling back or you've never actually gotten trolled. As for the second statement, I bolded: That's completely false. Plenty of people don't care because, as has been said, it is mindless. Getting mad at someone who isn't thinking is a waste of thought, whereas someone who's intentionally doing what they're doing is a decent source of anger.

It also needs to be said that spamming can be used as a method of trolling.

It's irritating at it's worst and anyone who reacts negatively to trolling is simply overreacting in my opinion.

Again, then you've never actually seen real trolling.

The truth of the matter is when trolling happens over the internet both parties, despite how angry or malicious their words may appear, are sat at their computer screens completely indifferent to what is actually happened (I believe there's actually a rage comic demonstrating this).

In some cases, sure. In all? Not even close. As evidenced by multiple statements in this thread (which you are even responding to), a lot of people take it seriously. A joke is only a joke when it's intended in good fun. If it's intended for everyone's enjoyment, it's not trolling.

Spamming on the other hand can be used much more maliciously than people are letting on. Entire websites have to be shut down at times due to server load caused by spam. That's real damage. Not people ragequitting a forum due to a few trolls.

...You do realize that if this kind of spam flood were ever intentional it would be trolling?

 

[Dan]

I think there much worse when combined , like making a competition that encourages spam is just trolling your community. trolololololol

 

[NESpowerhouse]

While trolls can be seriously irritating a times, at least they can sometimes be hilarious. Spammers on the other hand are just plain nuisances because it's so difficult to get rid of them.

 

[banders]

I say spamming because trolls at least give you a laugh sometimes.