Stop to box up troll lessons

In response to a real world offer via email today to co-author a paper on forum trolls and thread hijackers for the International Communications Association Convention panel on Cyberspace, I hereby offer to take each and everyone of you along for the ride.

Please submit here any and all considerations for what it would take to "box up for sale" the UBER TROLL or UBER Hijacker.

In other words... two questions...
What makes up / what has been the most trollish behavior you have ever witnessed or participated in? At least one person's contribution is already assumed to have been made based on participation in another thread. No need for that person to respond here.

What makes up / what has been the most egregious hijacking you have seen or participated in? Again, the person referenced above need not respond here, your contribution has already been noted.

I am actually being serious here. Give me your worst... links to such evidence extremely appreciated as this is a serious academic paper.

So, you dont want a rundown on what these are, but actuall examples of the perfect specimen?

*reads, rereads, blinks*

My sig has link to a suggestion that would be the end of all trolls and hijacks. I hope it is a standard feature in every forum someday.

Both can be made use of... a post here becomes "evidence" of what is considered as it is then a reference of a person's belief.

So, lists or links to examples.. or even links to lists of characteristics would be useful to me.

Thanks in advance.

(Be a part of a real world "to-be-published" piece of research! Don't be a troll.. wait... what am I saying!?!?!?!)

Well, I can give you some criteria of what I call good trolling and also what I think a good classic hijack is


Troll: Any post that is soley an attempt to illicit negative response.

Criteria for a good troll:

1. Must not be easily recognisable as an attempt to illicit negative response. Otherwise it is easily spotted and can be called out as a troll.

2. The less effort after the initial post the better.

3. Illiciting such a responce that you point out that it was a troll and the troll still lives

4. Create a response that causes fighting between other posters.


Hijack: Any post that succeds in changing the original topic of discussion.

Criteria for a good hijack:

1. Changes the topic subtley so as not to alert topic starter

2. The original topic starter joins in on the hijack

3. The original topic starter gets mad, but everyone likes the hijack better and ignores original poster.

4. Any hijack that creates a more interesting topic

5 Any hijack that succeeds in changing inflamatory topics

None of these are hard and fast rules...In fact they arent rules at all, just something I made up.

Feel free to add.

Here's some history from wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_troll

Oooh... I love the oxymoronic nature of "good troll".

Do you have any links or examples of a good troll post/thread?

Lol, I used to be a part of the WWII online forums that you can only access as a player since they are so caustic at times, but Alas I cannot even see them myself. That would be some of the best examples. Lemme go check the planetside forums though...Even though they have kinda gone downhill in quality lately, there may still be some juicy ones.

Ya, cant really find anything by searching and havent been to any forums with good trolling in a while.

It is definately an art and to be done right takes finesse.

A good troll might be going to the peta message boards and finding a nice topic that people are real touchy about and slightly poking on the subject while trying to sound like you are being serious. Maybe suggesting that there is evidence that animals dont have feelings.

An example of a bad troll would be going to the same boards and saying that vegetarians are pussy for not eating meat...

Even though they may get the same response any seasoned message board poster would spot the latter as an obvious attempt to "get their goat"

Vegetarians Like Goat Meat and mashed 'taters

Here in San Antonio, we call goat cabrito.


I can never decide where to put commas... I'm one of those people my english teacher told me about.

So essentially your defintion of a good troll is one who is not found out/recognized as such - for whatever reason including his/her skill at trolling? And a bad one is an unskilled one/someone who is found out/identified as such

Well, I would say among his peers he is known as a troll, but to a complete outsider he shouldnt be. It would have to be something you discover over time, not something easily identifiable.

Perhaps an experienced person would be able to spot the troll, but most people should be totally suckered, otherwise it's just not successfull.

Lets say I did something like came to the message boards and started a thread titled "My assesment of Second Life" and went on to pick out every point that tends to piss people off on these message boards. I could go through and find specific topics that tend to get people riled up and list them one by one in a nice coherant manner and make it sound like I am just giving my honest opinion. This way people might not realise that I was purposely listing touchy points just to rile them up.

A bad troll might be something like starting a thread called THIS GAME SUCKS and just bashing it.

In the second one, people would most likely realise that it is an attempt to attack the game and not feel the need to defend.


On that note, just because someone lists negative points about a game doesnt mean it's a troll, they might just be bashing the game and not care what response they get. It does have to be a concerted effort by the person to illicit negative responce.

Refer to the origin of the word to see why you have to purposely go for the negative responce, which is trolling, as in dragging a lure behind a boat while fishing. Basically using a post as bait to get the desired response.