Why not to Argue with an Idiot (or Troll)
Idiots (and trolls) plague the World Wide Web. We deal with them every day in some way, shape or form and often our livelihood is made through or by or among the conversations they inhabit. We’ve got the plain idiot: as in there are three types of people, those who will get it later, those who get it right away, and those idiots who will never get it. We’ve got the visit-my-website troll. The bait-and-run troll. And the anonymous pain-in-the-ass troll who just wants to be a prick and ruin your day.
I’m sure there’s a gamut of idiots and trolls that you can think of – probably one of those is going to comment here saying that I’m an idiot or a troll – or a trolliot or an idiroll. Whatever float’s their boat, I guess. Unfortunately neither idiocy or trolling are inherently criminal so we just have to live with their opinion. Don’t laugh, I noticed in Zeldman’s recent A Zing too Far that at least one techno-troll in his comment list has trolled this website in a previous iteration.
Here’s a tip: this afternoon I heard a great little rule to print out and put on your office wall which explains succinctly why you should never argue with idiots (or trolls, for that matter. The reason not to argue with them is simple:
Never argue with an idiot (or a troll)… they’ll just drag you down to their level and beat you to a pulp with their experience.
The moment I heard it there was a little Amen to the little light in the back of my trolled-to-the-cows-came-home blogger head. After all, who hasn’t had that experience at sometime on the Internet? Seriously, fuck ‘em.
