Re: THE ART OF TROLLING: Winding up the net




What's a Troll?

In the context of Usenet, a troll is not something that lives under a
bridge and eats billy goats. The term is borrowed from fishing, where
trolling means to drag a lure behind a slow-moving boat in an attempt to
fool fish into thinking the lure is alive and therefore good to eat. On
Usenet, trolling means to post some comment that invites foolish people
(the "fish") to either fall for your painfully obvious lie, or correct what
they think is your error. Trolling is NOT synonymous with lying, because
anybody with a brain and a clue can detect a good troll. Saying "I am a
midget" when you're really seven feet tall is NOT a troll, because there's
no way for anyone on the Internet to know how true or false that statement
might be. Saying "Ricardo Montalban is a midget" is a troll. Trolls are
usually text-only, but I have achieved some small success by creating quick
and dirty web sites which I point to as evidence.

This is just a rough guide to trolling -- there are many variations on
the theme.

Kibo had this to say on the subject:

From: kibo@xxxxxxxxxxxxx (James "Kibo" Parry)
Subject: Trolling for dollars
Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology
Date: Sun, 15 Jun 1997 06:48:12 GMT
X-Battlestar-Galactica-Date: 9581 centons, 71 microns, .04 mugars


My strategy is to see how ludicrous I can make the trollery and still have
someone fall for it. For instance, "William Shatner owns six pairs of green
socks." isn't a good troll if he owns seven pairs. "Isn't William Shatner a
pair of green socks?" is a good troll, but ONLY if it works, and generates
one of the four desired responses:

LEVEL 1 TROLLAGE (GULLIBOZO, 100 points): "He is? Oh no! Now I'd better
tell everyone else I know who used to like him!!!"
Believes everything he or she reads in actual print, which includes Usenet.

LEVEL 2 TROLLAGE (CYCLOPEDANT, 10 points): "No he isn't. I know because he
was on Star Trek last night and I spent six hours enlarging every frame on
my computer to look for green socks and you're wrong, you must be stupid or
something!"
Lacks a bull*** detector.

LEVEL 3 TROLLAGE (IMPEDANT, 3.14159 points): "I know this must be an
attempt to troll me, but I'll answer it anyway: No, he isn't. He is a human
being."
Bull*** detector malfunctioning, allowing pedantal lobe to override.

LEVEL 4 TROLLAGE (OTHER, 1/2 point): "I don't know."
Doesn't know but seems too interested for own good.

The desired response to an attempt at trolling is *not* a flame. Flame-bait
is not trolling, and trolling is not flame-bait, although it sometimes
generates flames from those whose bull*** detector is connected directly
to the bull*** generator. Flames generated by attempts to troll people do
not affect your score.
I should mention also the concept of a META-TROLL, which consists of
posting a COMPLETELY ACCURATE, TRUE, SANE statement and having trollage
ensue.

(true statement) "Nichelle Nichols on 'Star Trek' was dating the producer,
Gene Roddenberry!"
(level 2 response) "No, that was Majel Barrett!"
(explanation, not promulgated) Gene Roddenberry really was dating Nichelle
"Lt. Uhura" Nichols *and* Majel "Nurse Chapel" Barrett at the same time.

Meta-trolls generate BONUS POINTS, doubling your score.

There's also the COUNTER-TROLL, which is the concept of parrying a troll
with another troll, often done by people whose bull*** detector is
connected to the trollerizer:

(obvious troll) "Major Barrett wrote every episode of 'Star Trek' with his
wife, Jean Roddenberry."
(troll detected and parried) "Actually, you're thinking of 'Deep Babylon
Nine', starring George Lucas's pet rabbit Binky."

If the counter-troll generates trollage, the counter-troller receives
double points, and they are deducted from YOUR score, you LOSER!
The first person on the Internet to receive 10,000,000 points will be
declared the winner and will receive "hitsies".

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