What's a Troll?

     In the context of Usenet, a troll is not something that lives under a bridge and eats billy goats. The term is borrowed from fishing, where trolling means to drag a lure behind a slow-moving boat in an attempt to fool fish into thinking the lure is alive and therefore good to eat. On Usenet, trolling means to post some comment that invites foolish people (the "fish") to either fall for your painfully obvious lie, or correct what they think is your error. Trolling is NOT synonymous with lying, because anybody with a brain and a clue can detect a good troll. Saying "I am a midget" when you're really seven feet tall is NOT a troll, because there's no way for anyone on the Internet to know how true or false that statement might be. Saying "Ricardo Montalban is a midget" is a troll. Trolls are usually text-only, but I have achieved some small success by creating quick and dirty web sites which I point to as evidence.

    This is just a rough guide to trolling -- there are many variations on the theme.

    My friend Kibo has this to say on the subject:

    From: kibo@world.std.com (James "Kibo" Parry)
    Subject: Trolling for dollars (was: Year 2000 urgency not needed?)
    Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology
    Organization: welcome datacomp
    Date: Sun, 15 Jun 1997 06:48:12 GMT
    X-Battlestar-Galactica-Date: 9581 centons, 71 microns, .04 mugars
    X-Kibo-Equipment: a distributed Lego robot (distributed by accident)

    My strategy is to see how ludicrous I can make the trollery and still have someone fall for it. For instance, "William Shatner owns six pairs of green socks." isn't a good troll if he owns seven pairs. "Isn't William Shatner a pair of green socks?" is a good troll, but ONLY if it works, and generates one of the four desired responses:

    LEVEL 1 TROLLAGE (GULLIBOZO, 100 points): "He is? Oh no! Now I'd better tell everyone else I know who used to like him!!!"
    Believes everything he or she reads in actual print, which includes Usenet.

    LEVEL 2 TROLLAGE (CYCLOPEDANT, 10 points): "No he isn't. I know because he was on Star Trek last night and I spent six hours enlarging every frame on my computer to look for green socks and you're wrong, you must be stupid or something!"
    Lacks a bullshit detector.

    LEVEL 3 TROLLAGE (IMPEDANT, 3.14159 points): "I know this must be an attempt to troll me, but I'll answer it anyway: No, he isn't. He is a human being."
    Bullshit detector malfunctioning, allowing pedantal lobe to override.

    LEVEL 4 TROLLAGE (OTHER, 1/2 point): "I don't know."
    Doesn't know but seems too interested for own good.

    The desired response to an attempt at trolling is *not* a flame. Flame-bait is not trolling, and trolling is not flame-bait, although it sometimes generates flames from those whose bullshit detector is connected directly to the bullshit generator. Flames generated by attempts to troll people do not affect your score.
    I should mention also the concept of a META-TROLL, which consists of posting a COMPLETELY ACCURATE, TRUE, SANE statement and having trollage ensue.

    (true statement) "Nichelle Nichols on 'Star Trek' was dating the producer, Gene Roddenberry!"
    (level 2 response) "No, that was Majel Barrett!"
    (explanation, not promulgated) Gene Roddenberry really was dating Nichelle "Lt. Uhura" Nichols *and* Majel "Nurse Chapel" Barrett at the same time.

    Meta-trolls generate BONUS POINTS, doubling your score.

    There's also the COUNTER-TROLL, which is the concept of parrying a troll with another troll, often done by people whose bullshit detector is connected to the trollerizer:

    (obvious troll) "Major Barrett wrote every episode of 'Star Trek' with his wife, Jean Roddenberry."
    (troll detected and parried) "Actually, you're thinking of 'Deep Babylon Nine', starring George Lucas's pet rabbit Binky."

    If the counter-troll generates trollage, the counter-troller receives double points, and they are deducted from YOUR score, you LOSER!
    The first person on the Internet to receive 10,000,000 points will be declared the winner and will receive "hitsies".

    Kibo is an interesting guy. When you're done worshipping me, go worship him at http://www.kibo.com.