UNDERSTANDING A.R.E. TROLLS
Rich
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.
http://www.altairiv.demon.co.uk/troll/trollfaq.html#one
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[ The above was written by a career troll. ]
[ The trolls that inhabit A.R.E. may not be as conscious ]
[ of what they do, but their motivations are much the same.]
[ That aberrated motivation is to have fun at your expense.]
[ All of the Trolls in A.R.E. exhibit one and usually more ]
[ of the following behaviors ]
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PLAYTIME TROLLS
Playtime trolls are relatively easy to spot, but they may not
be apparent to the naive user. There isn't a single set of
characteristics that applies to playtime trolls, but you
can look for some or all of the following signs:
• a lack of buy-in to the list philosophy or values
• generally low level of activity, with sudden spurts of
interaction or perhaps a new persona that has strong opinions
on controversial subjects
• a mixture of friendly posts with confrontational style of interaction
• the use of provocative language and sweeping generalizations about
certain topics or categories of people
• a lack of in-depth understanding of the topic
• a lack of personal information
• a lack of a genuinely unique perspective on the topic
• a lack of humor
• restarting topics that have already been done
• use of language that encourages the dialogue to enter topics
that are controversial and likely to upset some team members
• the use of attention-seeking gimmick
(e.g.: "I was once exploited by an XYZ")
• they follow up their own articles if the group doesn't
respond to their posts
• inconsistencies in the style and nature of the post and any
proclaimed information (e.g.: claiming to be a child but
writing with an adult style; claiming to be adult,
but writing with a childish grammatical construction).
• also note that trolls often seem to use free email services
(such as hotmail.com) or have email addresses ending in .edu.
However, trolls could be virtually anyone, and the email address
is no guide as to whether the persona is a bona fide user or not.
To counteract playtime trolls, the best action is to ignore them.
http://www.teamtechnology.co.uk/troll.htm
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TROLL FLAMES
The first thing to remember about the net is that anybody can use it.
Anybody. Keep that in mind.
The second thing to remember about the net is that anybody
can say anything. Anything. Keep that in mind.
When Anybody can say Anything, the result is chaos. Flaming is one
example of chaos. So is lying, with its many variants (half-truth,
unbelievable presentation of the whole truth, outright fabrication,
and infinite variations on these themes). So is trolling, which is
deliberate baiting of others.
There are more subtle variations on chaos. There is no requirement
that a post be rational, for instance. There is no requirement that
people behave in a civilized manner. Nothing about the net enforces
respect for other people's views or feelings.
Anybody. Anything. Keep those in mind.
<SNIP>
Remember that there is a difference between talking about behaviors,
and talking about people. It is OK to say, "I don't like this
behavior," but if you say, "Anyone who would commit this behavior is
a _______," then you are also flaming. You have the right to flame,
of course, but be ready to take responsibility for it, both by being
a target of flaming, and by admitting to your flaming.
When flames start distorting the truth, maintaining your boundaries
requires extra care. It is OK to say, "This is what I did" or
"This is what I believe." When you say, "'_______' is a lie,"
then you imply that someone else is a liar. By implication, you have
crossed the other person's boundaries; you have discounted their
view of the world.
Flamers may not even realize that they are flaming. You have
the choice to ignore them, just as you have the choice to tell them.
But telling them more than once is rarely useful; people who listen
with their mouths do not understand how to listen with their ears.
Flame wars sometimes start by accident. One of the joys of human
language is its ambiguity, but that same ambiguity can also cause
problems. If you believe that you or someone else has misunderstood,
it's OK to ask for clarification. Then, having received or given
clarification, you can decide what to do next.
Finally, always remember that few flamers even understand the
concept of boundaries. Often, silence is all they deserve.
http://www.lava.net/~dewilson/writing/flame.retardant.html
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What is a Troll
The term "troll" can mean a number of different things, but in essence,
a troll is a person who aims to have 'pleasure' at your expense. There
are two main types of trolls:
1.people who are psychologically disturbed, and seek to feel good by
making other list members feel bad. This is a sort of "psycho troll",
whose deception involves deceiving themselves as well as others. In
this respect, they are no different to the sorts of people we meet in
everyday life who are disturbed - some of them are easy to spot, and
others aren't. Such people may even use their real names on the
internet, and they may not even realize that they are "trolling" because
it is all subconscious.
2.people who pretend to be someone that they are not - they create
personae that you think are real, but they know is fictitious.
<SNIP>
Dealing with Trolls
When dealing with suspected trolls, there are various strategies that
you can employ. First of all, remember that just because you suspect
that someone is a troll, it doesn't mean that they are a troll; also,
just because you suspect someone is genuine, it doesn't mean that they
are genuine. In view of this, the best tactics are:
• ignore postings that you suspect may be from trolls.
• don't invest any of your self emotionally until you have verified
beyond all doubt that the person you are dealing with is genuine
• beware of off list emails that praise and flatter, or seem to evoke
sympathy. If you feel yourself beginning to like someone, ask first:
how much verifiable data do I have about them?
• if you do get involved in anyone, seek out verifiable data. Trolls
will provide some data that will lead to dead ends; real people will
provide some data that is open-ended and leads to a myriad of sources
which enable you to verify their genuine status
• if you must respond to a troll posting, don't get involved in the
argument; limit it to pointing out that the posting may be considered
as trollish, for the benefit of other list members.
• Write to the list master to highlight what is happening
• Write to the postmaster of the troll's domain. Keep it simple, polite
and to the point (they are very busy!). Include your evidence (e.g.:
offensive emails) and the full email header information, so that the
troll can be properly traced.
• List masters can also make their lists restricted, and conduct a
security analysis of each list application before allowing them to
subscribe. This is probably easier to do in areas that have
professional associations or qualifications.
http://www.teamtechnology.co.uk/troll.htm
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Unfortunately, there is only ONE sure way to beat a troll, and that is
to IGNORE them.
A troll "feeds" off of the chaos he wreaks in a NG. If he can get even
a single person to respond to him, he will be happy. Once he gets the
first "victim", it is only a matter of time until he suckers someone
else into the argument. He will turn the NG on its ear and make it so
that the ONLY topic of real discussion is HIM and what HE is posting,
instead of the proper topic for that NG.
Posters that respond to trolls, or constantly post threads asking OTHERS
to ignore the trolls wind up doing the dirty work FOR the troll, even
though their intentions are exactly the opposite. By posting to these
threads, you only keep the off-topic threads going, and the troll's name
at the top of the NG, which is EXACTLY what he wants!
Bottom line, to kill a troll, IGNORE him!! A troll that can't incite you
has no power and WILL eventually move on. For those that have a hard
time NOT responding to trolls, your best defense is to NEVER click on a
post with the trolls name on it. Once you have identified someone as a
troll, bypass their posts from then on and don't even read them,
REGARDLESS of what you see in the subject heading!
If you want your NG to stay on-topic, you have to make an effort to KEEP
it that way. And sometimes, the best way to do that is to do NOTHING AT
ALL.
http://members.tripod.com/~thewebtvguru/trolls/index.html#3
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That is the difference between them and us. They have turned abusive.
Yes, that does make a difference. I've encountered some recovering
abusers on the net, and I learned a few things from that experience.
The one thing that sustains an abuser is denial; an abuser cannot allow
hirself to be open to the slightest possibility that sie is harming
another human being. They blame anyone and anything else in sight, but
virtually all of that blame is directed at the victim, in one way or
another. Abusers REFUSE to take responsibility
for their behavior.
In dealing with an abuser, particularly from a treatment perspective,
the first and most important step is to break that denial. It is not
only breaking the denial about hurting other people. It is essential to
break the denial that they are not responsible for their behavior. They
must learn that they have to take responsibility for everything that
they do, and it is a hard lesson to teach.
Until an abuser's denial is broken, it is dangerous to give them any
sympathy. Sympathy gives them a way out, a way to avoid taking
responsibility. Someone else made them the way they are; they're not
responsible. This is utter garbage, and to give them this opening is
truly a disservice.
So.
They are here to feed on our pain. We don't have to give them that
satisfaction.
They stay only as long as we feed them well. If we want them to go, all
we have to do is to stop feeding them.
The solution for trolls is in two parts. First, recognize and understand
that they are here to hurt us. The way that they hurt us is to beat on
us with their own rage. Recognize that everything they say about us is a
reflection of their own self-hate. Even when they hit our triggers, it
is their rage, their self-hatred that they are giving us. We don't have
to let ourselves be hurt by the fact that they hate themselves. We don't
have to accept that. We can let them drown in their self-hate, simply by
ignoring them.
And that is the second part. If you want a troll to go away, ignore hir.
When no one responds to them, they are left with their own venom. That
is the last thing that a troll wants to have to deal with.
Let us build an ASD zoo. Let us build cages, and put the appropriate
names on those cages. Then let us put a sign in front of those cages:
DO NOT FEED THE ANIMALS.
Then, most importantly, let us not feed the animals. Killfile or ignore
them, but do not respond to them, and do not accept their pain as your
own.
In a more practical manner, John Timothy brings it all down to five
simple rules:
(1) Don't read posts from or about abusers;
(2) Don't read email from or about abusers;
(3) If you can't resist reading, don't respond;
(4) If you can't resist responding, do so by email--not by posting here;
(5) If you are compelled to post a response, if you just can't stop
yourself, at least do the rest of us the favor of adding the abuser's
name to the subject line, so we can avoid reading that post. Thanks.
http://www.firelily.com/support/depression/trolls.html
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These children are a version of Internet vandals. They do no good and
only cause trouble. There are many ways that they attack. All of the
methods are very simple (remember the abilities of the people we are
dealing with here). They use open NNTP servers, anonymous remailers,
list servers, mail to news gateways, or a program that has as part of
the Path : ...!gergs_bane.org!anon. Many times they pick "real
looking" e-mail addresses so that someone who has gotten them mad
before will get in trouble. Clue : Don't mailbomb the e-mail or
postmaster of the site listed in the e-mail, they are probably
innocent and all that will accomplish is getting you in trouble.
While these children may see this as a harmless prank, the end result
is that they censor the regular readers of the target group by
overwhelming the group with off topic messages. This is akin to the
censoring of those that criticize the Church Of Scientology on the
newsgroup alt.religion.scientology. Censorship is censorship no matter
what the reasons.
The bottom line is that no matter if someone is trolling from
alt.syntax.tactical or from any other group (no matter who they are)
they are only looking for someone (anybody) to boost their ego by
getting a response. If you get upset and reply then all you are doing
is making them feel better.
<SNIP>
Then there are some who are accused of being trollers yet do not
agree. They argue that they are only having a discussion. They call
it "sarcasm" "irony" or witty banter. There are many versions of this
kind of person, they argue and cause an uproar and don't understand the
uproar they cause. Others may not have understood their intention and
both sides may have gotten a little too caught up in the discussion.
It is possible to try and help these people understand the uproar
they cause using e-mail. Sometimes the cause is hopeless.
<SNIP>
Defining troll, flames and crossposts
============================================
a) Flaming: I.e. rude comments, insults, personal attacks, etc.
b) Trolling: I.e. fishing for flames. Usually takes the form of inane
postings like smarmy love chatter, useless pieces of boring
information, McClatchie's FAQ, etc.
c) Cascades: Endless meaningless threads the posters repeat the same
phrase over and over, sometimes with a little variation. They are
amusing to the ones participating in them, boring to everyone else.
Crossposting is posting a message to more than one group.
<SNIP>
What to do
============================================
You are reading one of your favorite newsgroups and all of the sudden
you see the following message:
Subject: Can I bring my cat to Hell with me?
Newsgroups:
alt.flame,alt.spleen,k12.chat.teacher,alt.bigfoot,alt.tasteless,
alt.gathering.rainbow,alt.evil,alt.bigfoot,alt.sex.cthulhu,k12.chat.se
nior,
alt.satanism,rec.pets.cats
Date: 26 Jun 1994 23:41:48 -0700
From: ant...@phakt.usc.edu (Ron Shmet)
Organization: University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA
I am aware that I can't take my "stuff" with me when I die... <Rest of
post deleted because of stupidity>
O.K... so you know what a flame, a crosspost and a troll are. Now what
do you do about it?
A) Sit on your hands and bite your tongue. Reread the post. It may be
a new person to the Internet who has innocently hit your raw nerve.
B) Look at the newsgroups line and see how many groups the post is
posted to, specifically look for one the newsgroups
alt.syntax.tactical, alt.flame or alt.tasteless.
C) Continue to sit on your hands.
D) Look at the header to make sure that someone hasn't forged the e-
mail return address to get someone else in trouble. For help with
the header see:
http://ddi.digital.net/~gandalf/spamfaq.html
ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/alt.spam/
E) Stop sitting on your hands, but *Don't* reply to the post.
F) Read the alt.bigfoot FAQ :
http://www.lib.ox.ac.uk/internet/news/faq/archive/bigfoot.part1.html
http://www.lib.ox.ac.uk/internet/news/faq/archive/bigfoot.part2.html
G) Sit and think.
Hopefully if you have done all these steps your blood pressure has gone
down a few points.
The above applies to *all* posts that are trolls. The post may only be
to one newsgroup, but none the less it is a troll to try & cause
problems in the newsgroup. DO NOT POST! It will only get more people
upset at you than at the original flamer.
If you feel like you *have* to post a message TRIM THE NEWSGROUPS!
Delete EVERY other newsgroups from the header except the group you are
posting to. If you cannot delete the excess newsgroups, please do
everybody a favor and don't post.
<SNIP>
Killfiles
============================================
Most newsreaders support a killfile. A killfile tells your newsreader
to "ignore" certain posts or posters. The beauty is that you never
have to see a message from "X" again, or about subject "X" again.
<SNIP>
If you follow all of the above steps, you will be happier, but most
importantly Usenet will be happier for having less bandwidth abused.
<SNIP>
- How do I recognize an alt.syntax.tactical post in general? --
[or A.R.E. trolls]
- Cross posting to a large number of groups. Attention seeking
exercise.
- The "flogging a dead horse" syndrome. Taking topics that have been
done to death and rehashing them. In this case, trying to start
another alt.tasteless/rec.pets.cats flame-war (ho-hum). This is
likely due to the article detailing the original flame-war appearing
in WiReD magazine, so probably seeking attention again.
- General lack of interest, humor and a lame attempt to be offensive,
like crossposting to rec.pets.cats, the two K12 groups and
alt.gathering.rainbow.
Other general characteristics -
- a.s.t[A.R.E.] posters are in the habit of following up there own
articles if the original was (wisely) ignored.
- reposting complete articles or flame/counter flames with one line
comments, thus maximizing bulk.
- endless flame/counter-flames between the various a.s.t[A.R.E. Trolls]
invasion wave members when the real newsgroup members(wisely)
ignore them.
As a rule of thumb, if it is boring, pointless and inane, you can bank
on it being from a.s.t.[A.R.E. trolls]
-- What can I do about stupid a.s.t[A.R.E. trolls] posts? --
The golden rule is ignore. If someone farts in a room, the smell will
eventually go away. Likewise, if a.s.t[A.R.E. trolls] is largely
ignored, they too will go away.
Resist all urges to reply. You'll be bashing your head against a brick
wall and only giving them satisfaction. Learn to use your kill-file,ask
someone you know how if you don't know. The more hi-tech among you may
want to track them down and extract whatever electronic revenge you can
http://www.netmeg.net/faq/internet/net-abuse/troll-faq/
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TURNING YOU BACK ON A.R.E. TROLLS
Consider turning you back to A.R.E. trolls It is an enormous waste
of time and energy to give them reasonable answers. Why allow yourself
to be fodder for the trolls. Why be sucked into their negative spins?
If there is concern about newbies or seekers, it is far better to direct
your attention and words towards them.
Consider sorting the new posts by name, and deleting all the posts
of those detractors who have over and over proven themselves to be
intractable in their inane, bullying, lying, deceptive, despicable,
sarcastic, hateful, gadfly, derisive, self-righteous or childish
behavior.
Look to Love.
SoulWords
Sincere seekers will learn that it is better to use newsgroups to make contact
with
one or a few other sincere Souls then to actually expect a respectful exchange
of ideas.
Love, David
Rich
>
> Thanks, Rich, for a comprehensive overview of trolldom.
>
> Sincere seekers will learn that it is better to use newsgroups to make
> contact with one or a few other sincere Souls then to actually expect
> a respectful exchange of ideas.
When the seeker is ready, nothing can keep them for making contact with
the master... nothing. There are some here who will help facilitate
that connection, and the seekers of God will recognize them.
Recognizing the trolls will save a bit of time and effort, but the
connection will happen dispite them.
--
o
|
~/|
_/ |\
/ | \
-/ | \
_ /____|___\_
(___________/
Rich~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Sailing the CyberSea~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Michael Wallace
"SoulWords" <soul...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20001201175146...@ng-fa1.aol.com...
> Thanks, Rich, for acomprehensive overview of trolldom.
>
> Sincere seekers will learn that it is better to use newsgroups to make
contact
> with
> one or a few other sincere Souls then to actually expect a respectful
exchange
> of ideas.
>
Do you remember how much increased traffic there is at the Main ECK Website
in the last year David?
I seem to recall it has gone from 700,000 hits to 3.2 Million... I guess our
Trolls are better at promoting us than they reckon!! <G>
Love
michael
SantimVah
"Michael Wallace" <info@,pythagorus.org.uk> wrote in message
news:LXYV5.3$5t5.2...@news.interact.net.au...
> Do you remember how much increased traffic there is at the Main ECK
Website
> in the last year David?
>
> I seem to recall it has gone from 700,000 hits to 3.2 Million... I guess
our
> Trolls are better at promoting us than they reckon!! <G>
>
Naw, it's just Sharon running a few programs on her 486 trying to crash the
Eckankar website with too many hits. <g>
Love Sean
Gruendemann
the purpose!
SantimVah wrote:
>
> "Michael Wallace" <info@,pythagorus.org.uk> wrote in message
> news:LXYV5.3$5t5.2...@news.interact.net.au...
>
> > Do you remember how much increased traffic there is at the Main ECK
> Website
> > in the last year David?
> >
> > I seem to recall it has gone from 700,000 hits to 3.2 Million... I guess
> our
> > Trolls are better at promoting us than they reckon!! <G>
> >
>