What Type of Web Commenter Are You?

I'm amazed at the different reactions we get from the variety of posts here at Neatorama. Some items have no comments at all; others have discussions that go on for days. The same thing happens at the Neatorama forums and in the Upcoming Queue section. Some discussions are overwhelmingly positive or negative, others feature a lot of differing opinions, and some veer off-topic into something completely different. What kind of web commenter are you? Veteran journalist Michael Malone takes a look at the different types of commenters.
The Troll -- Everyone knows this guy (and it's usually a guy), who intentionally visits sites in order to stir things up, provoke a furious reaction from other posters and then disappear. Classic examples are the Free Republic types who visit Daily Kos and vice versa.

The Skimmer -- The commenter, usually sour, who reads only a headline or sentence of a piece, draws exactly the wrong conclusion, and then embarks on an embarrassing rant.

The Kumbaya -- These folks always show up two-thirds of the way through any heated on-line debate and ask, "Why can't we all just get along?" They are inevitably ignored or trashed.

The Parser -- What would we do without the Internet Grammar Police? These folks assiduously correct the online writings of others -- never quite catching on that the Web is designed to be fast, fresh and sloppy.

There are a couple of dozen types identified altogether. Link -via Geek Like Me

(image credit: ABC News)

Very funny list :D
I didn't see myself in any of those listed though :( Maybe a Tomboy? But I don't play WoW in my underwear.. just my pjs :P heh
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"The Corrector". I spent too much time in detention getting my English grades up and learning to get basic punctuation correct. Basic grammar mistakes just jump out at me when I read anything. It's my curse.
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I came across this website years ago, and this article reminded me a lot of it.

http://redwing.hutman.net/~mreed/index.htm

It is an illustrated list of different kinds of internet flamers. Hit the "begin" button on the right to go through the list.
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I think I am mostly The Droll, sometimes The Defender and other times a little of everyone of those. Did I forget to mention I have a dead prostitute buried in my back yard?
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These discussions always require reference to Gene Spafford's 1992 quote about Usenet (just substitute Internet, blogs, web, etc. for Usenet):

"Usenet is like a herd of performing elephants with diarrhea -- massive, difficult to redirect, awe-inspiring, entertaining, and a source of mind-boggling amounts of excrement when you least expect it."
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Is a "troll" anyone who disagrees with the majority?

If 95% think one way on a controversial topic, and the "troll" thinks another way, that will almost always "provoke a furious reaction" no matter how respectful the post is.

One-sided blogs are generally intolerant of opposing views. They like to have their own website without input from the other side. Anyone who comes in is viciously attacked until one side gets tired of posting.

But the "troll" in this case is blamed, with almost no responsibility on the many posters who attack him.
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I must be a Parser because I mentally screamed at the rationalization "the Web is designed to be fast, fresh and sloppy." Dammit, no! Nothing is going anywhere in the extra minute it would take to spell-check something!

dogrun81, as I understand it, the "troll" designation is for those who make deliberately incendiary comments just for the sake of stirring up trouble. However, many people apparently have difficultly distinguishing between that behavior and sincerely voicing an unpopular opinion (though to be fair, trolls often try to appear as the latter type).
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He forgot the most annoying commenter in the history of the internet: the activist, usually a militant leftist/ atheist of the Boing-Boing kind who will try to use any and every post whatsoever to bash capitalism, religion, meat eaters etc etc.
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What about the one who always points out that we've seen this done before and better?
There was a link once at Neatorama that had cartoons of Internet character types. It was cute.
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“the Web is designed to be fast, fresh and sloppy.”

if you think "correct" (meaning standardized) spelling is optional, here's a sample text from Chaucer from a time when "correct" spelling didn't exist (not as we know it today, at least):

Here bygynneth the Book of the tales of Caunterbury.
01 Whan that Aprille, with hise shoures soote,
02 The droghte of March hath perced to the roote
03 And bathed every veyne in swich licour,
04 Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
05 Whan Zephirus eek with his swete breeth
06 Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
07 The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
08 Hath in the Ram his halfe cours yronne,
09 And smale foweles maken melodye,
10 That slepen al the nyght with open eye-
11 So priketh hem Nature in hir corages-
12 Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages
13 And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes
14 To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes;
15 And specially, from every shires ende
16 Of Engelond, to Caunturbury they wende,

ALL HAIL THE ETERNAL VIGILANCE OF THE INTERNET SPELLING AND GRAMMAR POLICE!
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They forgot "The Marketer" - that's the fake person on the boards who's really there to either (a) hype the product or (b) be a 'real' person and correct bad press, via blogs. Deceitful!
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