Trolling This Post Would Be In Incredibly Poor Taste

Today’s edition of Speak-Up on Kotaku features a heartfelt plea from commenter GeshGav to keep the term ‘Troll’ from being rendered impotent due to overuse. At least I think that’s what he’s saying. Comments are one of those seemingly necessary evils of the blog business. Almost every news-blog has a comments section heaving with observations ranging from the self-indulgent whinnies of the perpetual complainers to the intelligently-constructed musings of the commenter-elite.(new Image()).src = 'https://capi.connatix.com/tr/si?token=995c4c7d-194f-4077-b0a0-7ad466eb737c&cid=872d12ce-453b-4870-845f-955919887e1b'; cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "995c4c7d-194f-4077-b0a0-7ad466eb737c" }).render("79703296e5134c75a2db6e1b64762017"); }); It would appear that recently, a phenomenon has swept across [[link]] all websites; where the same phrase is [[link]] brought up time after time. Troll. Originally, those who consistently fostered hatred or posted only to engender heated debate were marked with this brand. Now it would seem the simple act of stating a preference can result in being called a Troll. I haven’t had the misfortune to be named one myself, although I assume some incredibly witty individual will rectify that in the replies to this post; it’s a shame to see the word being diluted. Much like other strong words [[link]] in our various lexicons we should be reserving the word ‘Troll’ for the real assholes out there, accepting the different opinions of others with perhaps a muttered curse rather than a typed allegation of Trollery. We’ve got a good community of folks here, we should act like it more often. About Speak-Up on Kotaku: Our readers have a lot to say, and sometimes what they have to say has nothing to do with the stories we run. That’s why we have that little box on the front page of Kotaku. You know, the one with “Got something to say?” written in it? That’s the place to post anecdotes, photos, game tips and hints, and anything you want to share with Kotaku at large. Just make sure to include #speakup in your comment so we can find it. Every weekday we’ll pull one of the best #speakup posts we can find and highlight it here.