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

Slashdot trolling phenomena - Offensive trolls

Trolls in this category are those intended to be offensive, or those which take the reader to potentially offensive sites. A popular technique amongst Slashdot trolls is to post links to "shock sites" in order to annoy and offend other readers by tricking them into following the links. This is often accomplished by posting the link under the guise of being another link to the article or a rebuttal to the article.

A variation on this theme is for a troll to accuse a legitimate link or comment as being a link or reference to a shock site. In some cases this can have the desired effect of a genuinely insightful comment being moderated downward. Another technique is to embed a shock site link in a comment that otherwise appears relevant to the discussion, in the hope that unwitting moderators will mod up the post. The Holy Grail of any link troll is to slip a story submission containing a "shock site" link past the Slashdot editors. This situation occurred in July 2003 and June 2004 when disgruntled webmasters configured their servers to redirect to a shock site when the HTTP referrer was Slashdot.

One particular "shock site" which is overwhelmingly preferred to others is Goatse.cx. This has spawned a large number of other references such as ASCII art of its signature image (hello.jpg) within a square border, and with a derogatory word written inside the anus of the man in the picture. Troll postings often contain an ASCII art representation of some offensive image, often related to shock sites, with a nonsensical or provocative subject line. The 'Penis bird' troll, a crude ASCII representation of a bird perched on an erect penis, is a common variant, derived from the Penisbird image.

As a result of these trolling techniques, the Slashdot team introduced a feature which appends the domain name a link points to immediately behind that link in every comment to make disguising links more difficult. (e.g. "See Wikipedia article [wikipedia.org]") When this was implemented, people used mirrors and CGI redirection scripts run by Yahoo!, Slashdot itself or other servers to circumvent this measure.

Examples of shock sites include (More can be found at List of shock sites):

• Goat.cx - http://goat.cx ('Goatse.cx')
• Penis bird - http://smoke.rotten.com/bird/ - Original image from Rotten.com
• Tubgirl - http://www.redcoat.net/pics/tubgirl.jpg or http://www.tubgirl.com
• Obscene ASCII image of Linux Penguin
• Links to more

Slashdot trolling phenomena - Homosexuality and racism

Homosexuality is one of the most versatile and popular trolling devices used. In its simplest form it may be used on its own in the form of a homophobic insult or as a feature of a pornographic troll featuring common Slashdot topics and celebrities. Goatse.cx (see above "shock site" section) also takes advantage of homophobia.

Racism is another ploy, sometimes used for effect in conjunction with homosexuality which usually causes offense to individuals unfamiliar with it. At its crudest it simply takes the form of repeated racial insults. The Gay Nigger Association of America (GNAA) is an internet trolling organization commonly seen in Slashdot threads that uses this type of trolling device.

Slashdot trolling phenomena - Anti-semitism

Anti-semitism, and Nazism in particular, is now considered highly offensive across the modern world, a fact exploited by some Slashdot trolls intent on causing maximum offense to the reader. The most basic anti-semitic trolls usually involve posting pro-Nazi statements such as "Heil Hitler", sometimes accompanied by a crude ASCII-art swastika, and are usually very promptly moderated down as Flamebait.

Less blatant trolls might involve anti-Jewish conspiracy theories, in the spirit of such conspiracy theories rampant during the late 19th and early 20th century. For example, the GNAA's lol jews did wtc.

In a somewhat related vein, trolls often inhabit science or technology stories concerning Israel, dropping into the discussion otherwise completely unrelated posts on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Given the nature and sensitivity of this subject, these comments are usually successful in their aim of igniting a flame war.

Slashdot trolling phenomena - Nationalistic insults

One recurrent topic of discussion on Slashdot is the cultural quarrel between the United States and Europe. As an example, someone portraying themself as an American may run a joke on France, or may accuse Europeans of being "weenies" or not supporting democracy and civil rights. Someone portraying themself as a European may accuse Americans of lacking culture, or of being warmongers or "cowboys".

A similar subtopic includes banter about the differences between the United States and Canada. Usually an article about some perceived problem in the U.S. will elicit a claim of superiority from someone portraying themselves as Canadian. Often, to fan the flames, the American rebuttal will degenerate into Blame Canada.

The effect of such trolls is compounded by the immaturity and lack of political culture of many participants on both sides, who comment on foreign events they scarcely know about according to clichés seen in the mass media.

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