05/21/02
You got Trolled
  
    There is a common pastine on the internet you may have heard of called "trolling". 
This is basically the act of posting deragatory or inflamtory remarks in order to 
insite a reaction out of people. The term's origin comes from one of two places. In 
the story The Billy Goats Gruff, there was a troll hiding under a bridge that could 
lure the goats to him then eat them. Alternately in fishing, the small motor used for 
slow silent running is called a troll motor. This is used to move the boat quietly in 
hopes of not scaring away the fish, at the same time the fisherman will keep his line 
in the water pulled along with the boat. The idea is that fish are more attracted to 
moving food than they are suspicious imobile food. Either way the connetation is the 
same. Lure prey into a trap, then strike.
  
    Trolling is commonly done on newsgroups and message boards. Where to troll depends 
on the intended target and type of troll. For broad sweeping comments meant to enrage 
everyone, message boards may be better suited. Since Newsgroups seperate strings of 
replies into branches or 'threads', it's better suited for singling out people and 
trolling individuals. It is possible to troll in other ways such as on a webpage, 
though these other methods are generally fairly ineffective and we wont be discussing 
them at all.
  
    As stated before the idea behind a troll is usually to enrage a person or group of 
people. The idea is these people will then do something idiotic and make complete fools 
of themselves. The most effective troll is one that causes the person being trolled to 
realize thier own foolishness, escpecially after this person has fought tooth and nail 
to defend thier position. Most people are too stubborn to manage this feat however. If 
you manage to successfully make a fool out of someone you have then interm "owned" them 
or "spanked" them. Afterwhich the troll simply becomes a spree of insults meant to rub 
this fact in the person's face this enraging them more and thus proving your ownership. 
When you own them you can make them do anything you want.
  
    There are several strategies to go about in trolling. The easiest that anyone can 
do is to find a newsgroup or board and simply insult the topic blatantly. Though you 
can exagerate a few points it's best to use facts to back up your troll so it becomes 
impossible for people to refute your claim. For example. You can go to a newsgroup 
based on Pokemon and continually argue about the superiority of Digimon or Monster 
Rancher. Chances are this has been done before though so it won't prove very effective. 
It is a good example of how this type of strategy works however. You see Pokemon and 
Digimon are often considered compedetors and defenders of one are often haters of the 
other. There will be people who like both and there will be people who simply cannot 
be trolled. We'll cover this more later in etequitte.
  
    while this strategy is moderately effective and is the final underlying strategy 
behind most trolling strategies, it's not very subtle as well as overused. Most people 
will see you as a troll immidiately and blow you off. A good mothod to overcome this 
is to post some normal posts along with the troll posts. If you can gain support and 
sympathy from a few of the regulars, you'll be more likely to cause the group to turn 
on itself. Also the better your facts are the more effective your point will be. Also 
it's good to have a relevant troll. Going ot the Pokemon group and ranting about how 
much better Star Trek is than Pokemon is probably not going ot work, the two shows are 
not similar enough to sound like a legitimate argument. Another method of gaining suport 
is the crosspost. This only works with newsgroups however it can help in your trolling 
attempt.
  
    Let's consider the Pokemon/Digimon example, as weak as it is, if you crsspost this 
to alt.fan.nintendo.pokemon and alt.fan.digimon, you'll get posts from both groups. 
You'll get people in the Digimon group supporting the claim that Digimon is superior 
to Pokemon in you "fight" against the people in the Pokemon group. Additionally there 
are groups of people devoted to trolling. A couple of groups that may be good to 
crosspost to are alt.fan.adjective-army, or alt.alien.vampire.flonk.flonk.flonk. Keep 
in mind these groups are full of "proffesional trolls", so you may simply end up 
causing them to flame you. It's best to be sure you have a good strategy before posting 
to these groups. Alternately it's good to crosspost to groups where trolls frequent, 
groups like alt.games.final-fantasy, rec.sport.pro-wrestling, or alt.athiesm. These are 
"generic troll groups" that are probably full of other trolls that will gladly assist 
with any trolling being done anywhere.
  
    And as mentioned a bit of etequitte. While not nessesary I personally find it's 
good from keeping yourself in too mcuh trouble. Also it helps keep nekkkops from having 
an excuse to get your internet servive canceled. On a related note, chances are unless 
you do something seriously wrong, your ISP has better things to do than loose profits 
by canceling yourr account. Netkkkops often make empty threats and are easily trolled. 
Fuck them up. Encourage them and question why they havn't made good with thier threat 
to cancell your service yet. Newsgroups such as alt.config are good places to go if 
you want to get netkkkoped. While children don't usually post to newsgroups and message 
boards it's a generally good idea not to troll them. This means generally anyone under 
say, 15, though insulting someone by claiming they post like a 12 year old is a good 
insult. Also in keeping with the subtle approach, it's best no keep the swearing to a 
minimum. If you constantly flat out insult a person then you'll be quickly found out 
for the troll you are and you'll have no hope of managing to get your troll off. If 
you manage to be more civil with your facts while the other person is flaming away, 
you'll gain more support from others reading the thread. In case you don't know, 
"flaming" is slang for "insulting", thiese are often blantant and vulgar insults, a 
really poor flame is called a (f)lame, in regerence that is was "lame". Bad flames 
include "form flames", spelling (f)lames, PKBs and generally any sort of overused 
cop out.
  
    As a closing, I'll let you in on how to get going with an message board or usenet 
account. Message boards are easy. They are all over the place and usually the posting 
account is free. The best part of message boards is that it's difficult to get netcoped 
on. Basically if you post to a message board and start a flame war, then the message is 
deleted by the moderators, you have trolled successfully. Newsgoups are a bit more 
difficult. First you need a program that supports Newsgroups, Outlook Express and Free 
Agent are both good ones. Many trolls seem to prefer Agent however I personally find 
the interface clunky. Next you need to set up your program with a usenet account. Your 
ISP probably provides a usenet account and it probably is nammed news.YOURISP.net (or 
com or whatever). If not you can find some pay services on the internet for a decent 
price. There aren't too many very good free services around though. Google may or may 
not let you post, I havn't tried it in a while. While I can still think of a few more 
things to say on the subject I'll leave that to another day. Happy Trolling!