“Under the Bridge: An in-depth examination of online trolling in the gaming context” brings up the issue of trolling in online video games. The article attempts to discern a solid definition for trolling as well as why trolls troll. This is done through interviews and analysis of previous writings on the subect.

The article begins by stating how previous academic articles have had issues finding an accurate definition for trolling. Which reminded me of one online game I frequently play, League of Legends. Players will complain about trolls in game and how no matter how many times they report them, they still appear. Riot has responded generally to trolls and explained its system in numerous posts. At one point they had a a system where players would review games for where people were reported for trolling and toxicity. Though they eventually discontinued this system because “It’s slow and inefficient” and “It’s sometimes wildly inaccurate.” Now back to the main point Riot has stated that they have been able more easily punish players for being toxic in chat and having inappropriate users names with automation but are still largely reliant on manual reports for trolls. (For reference: https://nexus.leagueoflegends.com/en-us/2018/08/ask-riot-will-tribunal-return/). This inability to automatically punish trolls is in a sense similar to the issue the article begins with, an inability to effectively categorize trolling. It is often easy to determine when someone is saying inappropriate things in chat by just detecting a few words and phrases, but for someone who is silent but plays the game in a way that other players do not expect is not as easy. Because what is the difference between someone not understanding a mechanic and dying a lot and someone intentionally misplaying so they do not win? This kind of troll would probably fall under attempting to deceive others in some sense, which was one definition mentioned in the study. Though this would also connect why its hard to detect since it is unclear as to whether the player is new or actually attempting to mess with the game for others.

The article concludes with an experiment that involved interviewing different self-proclaimed trolls and determining why they trolled. An interesting point about this part of the article is how it mentions the age and gender of the trolls when referring to specific trolls in its experiment section. This is mainly interesting because the article does little analysis on either of these subjects save for a statement that, due to ethical reasons, no one under 19 was interviewed and that only two female trolls were interviewed, making it hard to draw conclusions. Though, the article does mention these topics as good starting points for future research and analysis.

Also, if you would like more of Riots responses to dealing with trolls and toxicity:
https://nexus.leagueoflegends.com/en-us/2017/01/ask-riot-banished-to-prisoners-island/
https://nexus.leagueoflegends.com/en-us/2017/06/ask-riot-practice-tool-stays-solo/
https://dotesports.com/news/how-riot-plans-to-address-autofill-trolls-9034