Frank said:
So I'm not much of a usenet expert, posting from google and all ...
just learned what "plonk" means. Wonder why it's important.
It's important because it tells you that, when you read posts that
are full of personal attacks, the target of those attacks has
chosen to use special software so that he doesn't see any posts
by the attackers - they are shouting into an empty hall. It also
tells you that the person being attacked has decided to rise above
the pettyness and to refuse to dignify any further personal attacks
with a response.
"Usenet being what it is, if you participate in newsgroups
at all over a period if time you have the possibility of
attracting your own personal lunatic, who considers any
disagreement a personal affront, and considers it their
duty and obligation to "expose" the person they fixate on.
It's kind of pathetic, but they can't quite seem to figure
out why no one else sees their actions as heroic."
-Richard Ward
Here is the official definition:
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Plonk
[Usenet: possibly influenced by British slang `plonk' for cheap booze,
or `plonker' for someone behaving stupidly (latter is lit. equivalent
to Yiddish `schmuck')] The sound a newbie makes as he falls to the
bottom of a kill file. While it originated in the newsgroup talk.bizarre,
this term (usually written "*plonk*") is now (1994) widespread on Usenet.
See also kill file.
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Killfile
[Usenet; very common] (alt. `KILL file') Per-user file(s) used by some
Usenet reading programs (originally Larry Wall's rn(1)) to discard
summarily (without presenting for reading) articles matching some
particularly uninteresting (or unwanted) patterns of subject, author,
or other header lines. Thus to add a person (or subject) to one's kill
file is to arrange for that person to be ignored by one's newsreader in
future. By extension, it may be used for a decision to ignore the
person or subject in other media.
See also plonk.
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Troll
1. v.,n. [From the Usenet group alt.folklore.urban] To utter a posting
on Usenet designed to attract predictable responses or flames; or, the
post itself. Derives from the phrase "trolling for newbies" which in
turn comes from mainstream "trolling", a style of fishing in which one
trails bait through a likely spot hoping for a bite.
The well-constructed troll is a post that induces lots of newbies and
flamers to make themselves look even more clueless than they already do,
while subtly conveying to the more savvy and experienced that it is in
fact a deliberate troll. If you don't fall for the joke, you get to be
in on it. See also YHBT.
2. n. An individual who chronically trolls in sense 1; regularly posts
specious arguments, flames or personal attacks to a newsgroup,
discussion list, or in email for no other purpose than to annoy someone
or disrupt a discussion. Trolls are recognizable by the fact that they
have no real interest in learning about the topic at hand - they simply
want to utter flame bait. Like the ugly creatures they are named after,
they exhibit no redeeming characteristics, and as such, they are
recognized as a lower form of life on the net, as in, "Oh, ignore him,
he's just a troll."
Some people claim that the troll (sense 1) is properly a narrower
category than flame bait, that a troll is categorized by containing
some assertion that is wrong but not overtly controversial.
The use of `troll' in either sense is a live metaphor that readily
produces elaborations and combining forms. For example, one not
infrequently sees the warning "Do not feed the troll" as part of
a followup to troll postings.
See also Kook.
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