Trollsnest
From eg
A trollsnest is a physical facility equipped for trolling, typically run by one faction. A set of tools or resources for trolling that are not physical but instructional is a trollkit. When infrastructure owners trust is distributed equally to all users of a trollkit, all users are sysops with equal power relationships to each other, and no faction has any particular power over another.
The best known trollsnests are:
- political party war rooms for trolling opponents during elections
- town halls for trolling advocates of stupid projects, e.g. NIMBY operations.
- radio call-in studio facilities equipped to take vast numbers of calls from the public (trolls, at least those who call in) such a studio can be set up in a home office using asterisk and 802.3af devices
- TV talk show studio facilities equipped to let trolls from multiple factions argue. The classic examples are CNN Crossfire and Jerry Springer show studios. The latter developed especially robust facilities for dealing with trolls who got violent.
Operating a very physical trollsnest invites liability when factions with strong feelings encounter each other or when individuals feel particularly humiliated. The role of talk show host requires them to lead/manage/moderate the proceedings to minimize danger. In one infamous case, Jenny Jones brought a gay man in love with a homophobic man on her show, so the former could reveal his love to the latter. The latter killed the former (after the show). This led to a general decline in confrontational talk shows. But the format remains popular and effective, and has survived mostly on political blogs - with political wikis and trollherds moderating this trend and providing more reasonable models of how to behave on contentious issues, e.g. OPIF.
