Slashdot trolling phenomena: Encyclopedia II - Slashdot trolling phenomena - Deceptive trolls

Slashdot trolling phenomena - Deceptive trolls

Often, trolls are created with the purpose of tricking the reader into viewing offensive or misleading information, or to deceive them in some way.

Slashdot trolling phenomena - Karma whores

Slashdot trolling phenomena - Comment plagiarism

Although comment plagiarism is an underappreciated trolling technique, this form of trolling can still waste many karma points. The troll will search for a highly moderated post a few pages down from the beginning of the discussion, reword it slightly, and re-post it as a reply to an earlier comment. This troll relies on the readers' ignorance to game the moderation system. These posts usually receive a lot of positive feedback in the beginning, and draw negative attention once the added visibility exposes the plagiarism. Normal discussions can crop up, from benign responses to the ripped-off comments. These replies create a multiplier to the overall karma waste, as moderators compete to raise and lower the visibility of the comments (insightful replies receive positive feedback, though responses to trolls are typically moderated downward, to sink an entire tainted thread below the normal visible threshold)

Slashdot trolling phenomena - Article text alteration trolls

Considered by many to be an effective satire of those who post comments consisting of a linked article's text (most often in case of the Slashdot effect) for positive moderation (see Karma whores), these are arguably some of the most creative and entertaining found on Slashdot. These trolls consist of the linked article's text, copied into a comment, usually accompanied by a subject line indicating that the site has been slashdotted. One or more words, phrases, or paragraphs are covertly inserted or modified to form a subversive or offensive message not present in the original article. These can be in the form of film or book spoilers, or words changed to produce sexual innuendoes, amongst other things. Often moderators will 'mod-up' the comment based solely on its title and the overall appearance of the text, assuming that the comment is helpfully providing the verbatim text of the unavailable site. Comments that have been repeatedly modded-up become more visible and carry an air of validity. Troll comments that fool more moderators therefore trick more readers.

When other users spot the troll, many of them respond with comments warning other users of the deception and asking moderators to decrease the troll's visibility. The most concise posts are empty with the emphatic subject line: "TROLL - MOD PARENT DOWN". Other users go further by pointing out each instance where the troll post differs from the original article. This phenomenon has trolls of its own, wherein a response will describe extra changes that are not present in the original troll post. This "troll-on-troll" phenomenon further increases confusion. Still more confusion is introduced when trolls respond to "Mod Parent Down" comments with rebuttals claiming that the original troll was a legitimate copy of the article, and that it is instead the accusers who are the trolls. Depending on the subtlety and believability of the changes, readers may remain confused until the site with the original article becomes available again. Unfortunately, because of the nature of the Slashdot effect, the original article may not become available again until most readers have lost interest and moved on.

"Mod Parent Down" posts are also sometimes seen as comments on legitimate posts, presumably as an attempt to disrupt the thread.

Examples of text alteration trolls are here. These are external links, and some of the pages contain offensive language:

• An example of the kind of post that ATTs are satirizing,
• "gradual as michael easing himself into taco's backside",
• "and Intel has not completed ...",
• "an operator took my contact info and said I would get ..."

Slashdot trolling phenomena - Web vendor referral trolls

Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and some other WWW vendors have a system whereby a user can post links on their (or others) websites, and gain a small commission per person following the link. These trolls post what appear to be discussion, with links to source material, but are really elaborate advertisements. For example: this post.

Slashdot trolling phenomena - Signature trolls

Signature trolls are an advanced and effective method of trolling, commonly used in reviews of software. The troll posts an insightful comment, which is moderated up based on its merit. The troll then changes his post signature to include an extra link, usually to a shock site. Comments on Slashdot cannot be edited after posting, but the user's signature text is updated within the comment whenever the user changes it. When the troll changes his signature, the malicious link becomes part of the highly-moderated comment. With careful wording, the signature can seamlessly blend in with the post and trick many readers. Slashdot has an option to put a signature separator consisting of --, but this was not the default until late 2004. Slashdot also has the option to disable the showing of signatures altogether.

The dynamic signature can cause even more confusion, when the troll changes his signature back to make his accusers appear false. As the accusatory comments receive negative moderation for appearing false, the accusers lose points from their karma score, resulting in another victory for the troll. An example of a signature troll is: this.

Slashdot trolling phenomena - Movie spoiler

This is a more subtle troll than most. It consists, for the most part, of a genuinely insightful comment split into several paragraphs, with the middle or penultimate paragraph containing one or more movie spoilers.

Slashdot trolling phenomena - 300 Dead in Sri Lanka Tsunami

Another red herring similar to the Stephen King is dead troll, this often consists of an announcement that a tsunami has killed over 300 people in Sri Lanka, with a link to an old or unrelated news item. In some cases, the troll chides the community for caring about trivial tech issues over the welfare of tsunami victims in other parts of the world. A successful Sri Lanka tsunami troll will either drive participants to news sites searching for more information, or attract responses from members eager to show witty nonchalance, usually via nationalistic insults. Example troll on Slashdot.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Deceptive trolls", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki