[Galaxy Ace S5830 General] side_effect:
I found a lesson on trolling:-

To utter a posting on Usenet

designed to attract predictable responses

or flames. Derives from the phrase "trolling

for newbies"; which in turn comes from

mainstream "trolling";, a style of fishing in

which one trails bait through a likely spot

hoping for a bite.

The well-constructed troll is a post that

induces lots of newbies and flamers to

make themselves look even more clueless

than they already do, while subtly

conveying to the more savvy and

experienced that it is in fact a deliberate

troll.

If you don't fall for the joke, you get to be

in on it.

The following extract is from a broader

expansion of the defining comments given

above:

In Usenet usage, a troll is not a grumpy

monster that lives beneath a bridge

accosting passers-by, but rather a

provocative posting to a newsgroup

intended to produce a large volume of

frivolous responses.

The content of a "troll posting generally

falls into several areas. It may consist of

an apparently foolish contradiction of

common knowledge, a deliberately

offensive insult to the readers of a

newsgroup, or a broad request for trivial

follow-up postings.

There are three reasons why people troll

newsgroups:

People post such messages to get

attention, to disrupt newsgroups, and

simply to make trouble.

Career trollers tend for the latter two whilst

the former is the mark of the clueless

newbie and should be ignored.

Section 2: Design Issues

A troll is no different to any other Usenet

posting. That needs to be stressed.

Any article that you decide to write should

be written with a view to it actually being

read by large numbers of people. Simply

X-posting to large numbers of irrelevant

newsgroups is not creative trolling - it is

just spam and should be avoided.

The experienced troller spends time

carefully choosing the right subject and

delivering it to the right newsgroup. With

trolls, delivery is just as important as the

subject.

Start the troll in a reasonable and erudite

manner. You have to engage your readers'

interest and draw them in.

Never give too much away at the start -

although a brief abstract with hints of

what's to come can work wonders.

Construct your troll in a manner to make it

readable. Use short paragraphs and lots of

white space. Keep line length below eighty

characters. Use a liberal amount of

emphasis and even the occasional

illustration.

A good rule of thumb is that as your troll

becomes more and more ludicrous put

extra effort into the presentation - this

keeps the mug punter confused. Let

confusion and chaos be your goal

Section 3: Content

Make your subject a relevant one. Posting

"Star Trek Sucks" into hk.forsale is not

going to work very well and is liable to

utterly destroy your hard earned reputation

as a troller overnight.

You do not have to make the subject clear.

Trolls are aimed at two audiences, the

respondees and the lurkers.

The best trolls reveal their true subject

only to the lurkers. In every sense those

who reply to your troll are your tools. So

choose a theme for your troll and stick to

it.

Outwardly you need to appear sincere, but

at the same time you have to tell your

*real* audience that this is blatant

flamebait. Your skill is shown in the easy

way that you manipulate large areas of the

Usenet community into making public

fools of themselves.

Section 4: Newsgroup Selection

Choice of newsgroup is as important as the

subject, tone and structure of the troll. You

want to appeal to each group you X-post

into to ensure responses from each group.

A well delivered troll will anticipate what

those responses will be and thus ensure

that contradictions will arise amongst the

different groups that you are setting up.

BAD:

Posting "USA Sucks" to alt.nuke.the.USA,

alt.usa-sucks, aus.flame.usa

This is totally on-topic and obvious. A

truly useless troll.

AVERAGE:

Posting "God Doesn't Exist" to all the

alt.religion newsgroups

Here you are being too obvious. People

recognise this sort of trouble making and

have usually learned not to respond to it.

However, if your troll is well written you

can actually entrap a lot of newbies.

This, if executed correctly, can be

exploited to cause great offence to those

more experienced troll avoiders on the

groups you are attacking. Go for it!

GOOD:

Posting an article that appears relevant to

every group but with no connection

between those groups other than the fact

that you've just trolled them.

The best trolls go out to an average of

around eight or nine newsgroups. This will

stop them from becoming spam as it's not

quite enough to be a real problem.

However, to get by on so few groups you

have to include a couple of popular ones

in the list.

When posting to say seven groups you

should try to break down your theme into

seven areas - each of which will be of

specific interest to just one of those

groups.

You then write an eight paragraph troll with

a paragraph for each group and a spare

one for yourself with which to lob in a

gratuitous insult to everyone who was

dumb enough to read your troll.

It is a matter of choice whether you choose

newsgroups before or after writing the troll.

Some experts claim that newsgroup

selection is the key to successful trolling

and should be done first, others will write

general trolls and then apply the standard

Perl script that trollers use for Automatic

Random Newsgroup Selection.

Section 5: Know Your Audience

Remember that you have two audiences.

The people who are going to get the

maximum enjoyment out of your post are

other trollers. You need to keep in contact

with them through both your troll itself and

the way you direct its effect.

It is trollers that you are trying to entertain

so be creative - trollers don't just want a

laugh from you they want to see good

trolls so that they can also learn how to

improve their own in the never ending

search for the perfect troll.

The other audience is of course the little

people in those newsgroups that your are

attacking. Get to know them. Every

newsgroup has its smartarse who will

expose your troll if given half a chance.

Research your targets and learn what their

arguments are. Then avoid those

arguments like the plague.

Drag them off-topic - the further off-topic

the better. Remember, you are trying to

waste their time.

Never take sides - remember that your

goal is not to win an argument, rather it is

to provoke a futile one that runs forever.

If, for example you were attacking Fast

Food then you should also X-post to

Healthy Eating groups, Environmental

Protection Groups, Animal Rights Groups

etc....

You want to try to ensure that you have the

broadest possible range of opinions as

this is the easiest way to sow confusion.

The more confusion the less the likelihood

of your troll being exposed for what it is.

It can also be shown that the inclusion of

just one totally off-topic newsgroup can

have dramatic effects.

The list above is taken from a genuine troll

which also included an Artificial

Intelligence group, the result of which was

to draw Computer Guru Professor Marvin

Minsky into a flamewar concerning Ronald

McDonald's exploitation of the disabled -

an all-time classic piece of trolling -

written by a practising veggie.

Section 6: Following-Up

"Even if this is true......"

That represents the perfect response to

any troll. The mark of a gullible lunatic that

will almost certainly believe anything you

tell them. A total group embarrassment.

Award yourself a Troll Gold Star every time

you get one!

Other good responses include, but are not

limited to....

"Although this is on-topic....."

"I disagree...."

"Yes, but....."

"Can you provide a source for this...."

Try not to follow-up to your own troll. The

troll itself quickly becomes forgotten in the

chaos and if you just sit back you can

avoid being blamed for causing it.

Remember, if you do follow up you are

talking to an idiot. Treat them with the ill-

respect they deserve.

You should also learn to recognise follow-

ups from your fellow trollers. Sometimes

an average troll can be elevated into

majestic proportions when several trollers

spontaneously join forces via the medium

of the follow up troll.

Ignore cries of wasted bandwidth! This is

pure drivel that will always be posted by

the anti-troll lobby.

These jerks fail to understand that trolls are

the best way to drive people off the

internet thus making available multi-mbs

for the rest of us to download our porn.

Section 7: The Successful Troll

A good example of troll success is the

famous "How I Envy American Students"

troll.

This troll was written by an English brick-

layer posing as an American student. He

correctly posted it to all the college news-

groups and then left american students to

do all the work spreading it.

His troll ran for over a year, it is known to

have generated in excess of 3,500

responses (an average of 1 response every

160 minutes for a whole year) and the

greatest coup of all was when an innocent

american student lost not only her internet

account but was also expelled from high

school for abuse of the computer systems.

Somehow she had managed to get the

blame for causing the troll.