How to spot a troll

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Lambkin
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How to spot a troll

Post by Lambkin »

I enjoyed reading this study of Internet troll identification. I found it especially interesting how closely some of our trolls hew to the standard behaviors and characteristics, which I would summarize as angry ignorance and perseveration.

http://thestack.com/cornell-justin-chen ... ior-130415
http://arxiv.org/pdf/1504.00680v1.pdf
[Trolls] nearly all began their commenting life at a lower perceived standard of literacy and/or clarity than the median for their host groups, with even that standard dropping in the final stretch towards a moderator ban. Additionally those last pre-ban troll posts tend to home in on a smaller number of comment threads relative to the number of posts
From study:
users who are excessively censored early in their lives are more likely to exhibit antisocial behavior later on. Furthermore, while communities appear initially forgiving (and are relatively slow to ban these antisocial users), they become less tolerant of such users the longer they remain in a community.
JamesVincent
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Re: How to spot a troll

Post by JamesVincent »

It's funny, I play World of Tanks, along with my kids, and I have found over the years that the ones that complain the most about others are the most worthless ones on the team. Good example, I was playing one day in my T-28 Prototype. My team (which was worthless) left me alone on my flank and I held that flank, by myself, for almost 10 minutes with a little help from arty. The supposed scout, who had scouted the middle, complained long and hard after he was killed about me. Threatened to report me for inactivity, called me a noob and every other name in the book. Even the enemy team told him to shut up, that I wasn't inactive. Get to the end of the match and I look through the team score. I had the highest damage, on either team, a little over 4k damage, by a good amount. I also had 5 kills (out of 15 on either team) and a ton assisted damage (meaning I had either spotted them or tracked them so someone else could shoot them, in this case, arty had hit some of the ones I was shooting). Our friendly neighborhood scout? O damage and no tanks spotted. Meaning he had failed completely at his role in the match. Yet I was the bad player.

It's the same as a forum troll. They are consistently the ones that really bring nothing to the table. They tend to be either un-educated or "self-educated" and cannot see the value of an education or the value of scholarship. They tend to have highly developed and irrational beliefs, mostly through their "education", and hold those beliefs strong. Any one who disagrees with those beliefs is an idiot or trying to hold them down. If you try to censor them then Godwin's Law comes into effect. They will resent any actual help trying to further their education by declaiming and trying to denigrate other's education or background.

Another effect of the internet, which I run into quite a bit, is the "Internet Rambo" syndrome. The ones who depend on the anonymity of the internet to save them when they run their mouths and say things they would never say to someone in person. I know none of you have ever seen me in person, some of you may have seen pics of me, but needless to say I look like either an ex-convict or the old stereotype of a mountain man (funny considering where I live). A very large ex-con. Nobody, in real life, would feel safe running their mouth to me. And the very few I have run into over the years that have also have had some severe, and obvious, mental defects. Yet I have gotten threatened to have my ass kicked and a bunch of other stuff on the internet. These people feel safe doing so since they're pretty certain they will never have to own up to the words they type. And, beyond that, I've had my intelligence questioned by these same types. You know, I've screwed up here and there in life, done some pretty stupid things. Yet, unlike one of resident trolls, I actually passed an IQ test and know very well what my IQ is and why it is that score. I fully understand my strengths and weaknesses. Yet, on the internet, everyone is the equivalent of a Rhodes Scholar with a double Ph.D in everything. Except you, you're an idiot.
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Pottapaug1938
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Re: How to spot a troll

Post by Pottapaug1938 »

To me, one of the hallmarks of a troll is the "just asking" or "just curious" approach.
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Re: How to spot a troll

Post by The Observer »

JamesVincent wrote:It's funny, I play World of Tanks, along with my kids, and I have found over the years that the ones that complain the most about others are the most worthless ones on the team
I have encountered the same kind of people in online gaming, and agree with your statement. World of Warcraft allowed add-on software so that you could track your teammate's results during raids. It allowed people to spot the slackers and the AFKer's, people who were not putting out. During one such raid after items were awarded, one player screamed and complained how his efforts were being ignored. The raid leader was calmly taking all of this in and after the idiot finished his rant, the leader flashed his statistics into the chat window so all could see. Even a half-blind senior citizen could see our "most valuable player" had been spending much of his time doing something other than playing WoW - perhaps inspecting the back of his eyelids for holes. At that point the entire team sent him a lot of hate chats and messeages and told him to shut up. He quickly left and quit the server rather than have to deal with the tsunami of mocking that would have followed him every time he logged on.

Anonymity is one of the primary reasons this kind of behavior perpetuates itself on the 'Net. It encourages idiots like these that they don't have to face the results of their behavior.
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Re: How to spot a troll

Post by Judge Roy Bean »

Something I've noticed over all these years is the deliberately-ignorant among the trolls have something in common with rather disturbed, socially-inept people: They have no sense of humor. At least none that typical, self-actualized, rational people would recognize. They would read one of Famspear's punacious limericks and not even groan, let alone smile.

And they have a tendency to believe in the "quantity makes up for quality" mode of writing with healthy doses of plagiarism brought on by the simplicity of cut and paste.

Couple those two things with narcissism and you have your average troll.
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