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Anonymous traces back to 2004 as a group of computer gamers and aspiring hackers, harassing other computer users. A key activity of Anonymous members online is called "trolling".
"Trolling", as their dictionary at urbandictionary.com calls it is "the act of purposefully antagonizing other people on the internet, generally on message boards." - or, one might add, on places like rantrave.com. Anonymous trolls are proud if they get someone to get excited or upset about some provocation they spread.
A reporter of the New York Times managed recently to track down and interview some "trolls" which gives more insight in how trolling works. In the article, very much worth reading, one of the interviewees, a person calling himself "Weev" is described as "part of a growing Internet subculture with a fluid morality and a disdain for pretty much everyone else online". Weev engages like many other Anonymous in trolling which he defines as giving him "lulz". Another word of the inner circles of Anonymous, "lulz" means "the joy of disrupting another's emotional equilibrium. Lulz is watching someone lose their mind at their computer 2,000 miles away while you chat with friends and laugh".
Many anonymous postings and "articles" in the current controversy about Scientology - even the "war on Scientology" - are done "for the lulz". So it does not surprise that most contributions from anonymous writers seem to only have in mind to upset the reader, in this case a member of the Church of Scientology. With this I leave nolanchart.com. Places that can be abused so easily for "trolling' and far more harmful personal attacks and slander should not be gratified with traffic and ad revenue.
(Sources in the external links)
Originally posted here: http://www.nolanchart.com/article4827.html