Slashdot Mirror

(Not for rand, her not-for-profit organization doesn't believe in charity, volunteerism or, for that matter, not-for-profit endeavor!)

AynRand.org does not specifiy that it is non-profit. Simply because it is an organization created to spread Objectivism, and which collects contributions to that end, does not classify it as non-profit.

She simply was justifying why men that rise to the top of the capitalist world, like Ken Lay, are a better sort of people, period.

Actually, no. In her books, the people on the top (the ones in power) were the "bad" people if you recall. Simply because you are on top and have the power, does not mean you are a "better sort of person". She tried to say that everyone should have the freedoms to pursue their own self-interest without interference from other men.

This "rant" of yours is fine if all you want to do is spout off a non-factual "opinion", but until you can demonstrate inconsistency or problems with her philisophy (which you have not done in the above), you're just blowing smoke out your arse.

I think Ayn Rand would disagree .

Island, Ape and Essence, and, actually, most of Aldous Huxley's works.

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley.

The Third Man by Graham Green.

The Castle, The Metamorphosis, and, again, the majority of Franz Kafka's Work.

Depending on your Politics and Economics, the works of Ayn Rand might be the most depressing stuff you've ever read.

Oh, and let's not forget Hamlet, Macbeth and the rest of the Shakespearean Tragedies.

Jefferson said,
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with inherent and inalienable rights;...

I've already given the major Jefferson "I do not find in our particular superstition of Christianity one redeeming feature" quote elsewhere, so here are some others.

"The hocus-pocus fantasy of a God, like another Cerberus, with one body and three heads, had its birth and growth in the blood of thousands and thousands of martyrs."
- Thomas Jefferson in Jefferson's Works, Vol. IV

"Our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions, more than on our opinions in physics and geometry....The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg."
- Jefferson's "The Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom"

"...an amendment was proposed by inserting the words, 'Jesus Christ...the holy author of our religion,' which was rejected 'By a great majority in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and the Mohammedan, the Hindoo and the Infidel of every denomination.'"
-from Jefferson's biography

Since you didn't quote Washington or Adams or Madison or any of the other founding fathers, i shall allow you to look up for yourself what they had to say about Christianity. Trust me though, you won't like it.

The Founding Fathers on Religion
Athiesm Awareness

"The next thing you know it will be illegial or unlawful to utter the word 'God' in public"

The same law that prohibits the government from promoting any religion, prohibits the government from censoring any particular religion

"So much for the founding fathers with their Christian beliefs"

Need advice about your latest megalomaniacal scheme? If only you could ask history's greatest megalomaniac, "novelist" and "philosopher" Ayn Rand. Too bad she's dead. But wait! In 1963, a secret cabal of Objectivists intent on taking over the Student Union at MIT built the first robotic Ayn Rand, and now you can own a Randroid® based on their original design. Comes with stock phrases such as "Morality ends where the gun begins," "Pity for the guilty is treason to the innocent," and "Nathaniel! Bring me another gin and tonic!"

Price: US$50,000 includes software*
*software tends to be rather buggy. For instance, your Randroid may oppose immigration, yet be an immigrant herself. She may oppose infidelity, yet cheat on her husband. She may espouse individuality, yet believe that only those who follow her are individuals. She may oppose the control of individuals by organizations, yet laud corporate power. These bugs can not be repaired.

Seriously, I would like to see kids get off their collective asses and do some physical activity outside of gang banging and skin slapping. LAN parties promote the opposite of physical activity. Now with so many kids suffering from adult diseases due to obesity and societal cost of obesity outpacing smoking, I think forced physical exercise would be better than fraggin' their classmates.

Heads are Gonna Roll: The Lexical Connection Between Capitalism and Death

While doing research for a longer expose on the correlation between Western Economics and the worst forms of human violence, such as war, slavery, and murder, I have discovered a most fascinating bit of history. There apparently is a connection between the economic system known as Capitalism and a killing device known as a Guillotine. The connection may leave your head spinning ;^)

We begin by examining our language, for our language has evolved along with our human cultures. Studying word origins (etymology) may give us insightful clues into our history, the unpleasant parts of which the historians may have sanitized in order to make their product (history books) more marketable. We humans, it seems, don't like to be reminded of our savage origins, or the logical inconsistency of our savage nature.

In this essay, I will begin to explore some ideas I have which may explain our violent culture, which Rutgers University Law Professor Gary Francione says exhibits a "moral schizophrenia", a society which Frank Zappa called "socially retarded" and "dumb all over", a community defined by for-profit media corporations spewing confused doublespeak to unquestioning alcohol anesthetic brains, a culture which, rather than condemning all violence, attempts to justify that violence which suits our own savage lust for blood, fills our bellies, is good for our investments, or guarantees us a cheap tank of gas for our sport utility vehicles.

Contrarily, I assert the premise that a civil and democratic society with a stable population (i.e. not growing) based on the principles of non-violence is the only logically consistent, sustainable, and morally defensible kind, a society where the civil order is spontaneous, arising from social contracts amongst morally responsible beings. This utopian ideal is opposed to our current world, where a kind of fascist order is imposed by gangs of violent thugs with high-tech weapons, operating only under color of an ersatz law imposed by a savage and non-representative elite ruling class.

In my studies and experiences, the correlation between savagery and our dominant religious beliefs were always clear (the topic of a different essay!), but at some point I began to formulate a hypothesis that there may be more to blame than just religion as the source of Western violence.

During my research, I discovered that our happy, G-rated, warm and snuggly word "capital" shares it's roots with the not-so-splendid word "decapitate". "How curious!", I thought. What could be the common thread connecting these things? Any ideas? Well, it turns out the key is right inside your head.

Well, not inside exactly. It's in all heads. It *is* all heads, in the abstract sense: a roundish bone covered with flesh and hair containing eyes and a brain, the center of consciousness of an autonomous creature possessing the animating force, which roams the earth of its own free will, self-aware, and aware of its surroundings.

So where the hell can I be going with this, you ask!

Well, open up any dictionary, and you will learn that the Latin root of the word "capital" is "capitalis", from the Indo European "kaput", which means head. Remember the guillotine we spoke of before? This is a device used for decapitation, where the unlucky victim loses his head. Are you beginning to see how this all fits together?

Now our Economic System has become a "sacred cow", so to speak, as the people who criticize it are labeled the most horrible names. All of us who grew up in America were taught from the earliest age the evils of "Communism", a rival economic system, but never told exactly why it was evil. During the 1950s and 1960s, Senator Joseph McCarthy lead one of the largest witch-hunts in modern history, and many professional actors and musicians were blacklisted as being suspected members of Communist organizations.

But because we enjoy challenging the herd-think, let's see if we can find other lexical connections between our economic "sacred cow", and death. Perhaps it will lead us to some other sacred things which are often overlooked, even trampled upon by the stampeding mob, so obsessed by greed, so absorbed with getting stroked by Adam Smith's Invisible Hand of self-interest, they can't even hear the cries of those they hurt, or don't think those others matter. Perhaps they simply don't care.

But maybe, just maybe, Adam Smith and all his followers (like Ayn Rand) are wrong. Perhaps selfishness, since all life is connected, is a kind of self-hatred. And since self-hatred seems to often lead to self-destruction, those of us who actually enjoy life and feel it is worth living, and worth sustaining, want to see self-hatred transformed by love into something better.

Every man, woman, and child, every smelly leper, every prisoner, every bird, every bee, and every cockroach and spider are all perfect reflections of the Divine Spirit, so perhaps the greed embodied by Capitalism is a kind of blasphemy, perhaps a capital offense.

Which provides a nice segue back to our topic! A "capital offense" is a crime deserving the death penalty, a possible sentence for which is when the accused heads off to the guillotine. Notice however, that a capital letter is at the head of different sort of sentence. A Capitol is where the head of the government lives, which is (hopefully) a man with a good head on his shoulders. Finally, in Russian, a thing which is "kaput" is as dead as Marie Antoinette. If you begin to see how this all fits, go the the head of the class!

But all of these capital-death denotations come from etymological connection between the word "capital" and the word "head". But from where does this connection derive?

The Cult of the Cow: Capitalism and The Idea that Things with Eyes and a Brain are Ownable Property

The connection between capitalism and the Indo European word for "head" comes from another nexus, that between economics and cows. From antiquity to the present, cattle have been referred to "heads of cattle"; even the word Cattle derives from "chattel" also from the Indo European word for head. Note the word "chattel" has been used to refer to "animal property" (horses, pigs, sheep, cows, and yes, even human slaves), for hundreds of years. Heads are Money, or so our language seems to be telling us.

The capitalism-cow connections are endless: A successful business venture is a "Cash Cow". When investments are growing, it's a Bull Market. When you are exhausting some resource, you are "milking it for what it's worth". While not explicitly a cow connection, the phrase "making a killing" (meaning making a profit) may indirectly refer to the slaughter of innocents for profit, to sell to those that crave the taste of blood.

There are connections to other animals, and slavery: one United States Federal Reserve Note (a/k/a, a dollar) is also called a "buck", a unit of money. But a buck also means a male deer (a unit of food to a carnivore), and is also slang for a male slave.

Now I'm losing some of you right now, because you say the Bible allows killing animals. We need meat in order to be healthy. Animals aren't moral agents, and don't have souls. We've always exploited animals for our gain. Look at nature! Big fish eating little fish...

But I argue that the same idea that allows ownership of a cow, allows for the ownership of a man. And if you think that slavery is gone from the modern world, you are not seeing the forest for the trees. The same notion that allows for the killing of a cow for selfish reasons, can be used to justify killing *any* creature, or *any human society*, for those same selfish reasons.

Isn't it time for the cycle of violence to stop?

Even the word "stock market" derives from the slave trade, where "livestock" was sold at auction. Now this word only connotes non-human animals, but historically it was applied to human slaves as well. There are still remnants in our language of this. Today, human prisoners are kept in holding devices or cells called stockades or a bull pens.

Thus, cows, prisoners, slaves, and those murdered by the state for their crimes, are all connected in this way, not just to the roots of word Capitalism, but also to the Capitalist idea which treats each of these creatures as beings not of their own right, but ownable property, having no self interest nor the power of self determination, but existing only to serve the interests of their owner, the Master or the State.

We humans claim to be smarter than the animals, "higher" than those savage brutes. So why can't we use our heads for something more than a place to park our John Deere ball cap, and figure out a way to formulate peace? Can't we create a new economy which does not rely upon dominination of the weak, and explotation of those creatures which don't speak our language?

End.

Nice to see you drop by, Ayn. Now stop trotting out this tired old bullshit. Seriously: what you might expect is that you would be rewarded for your efforts, and in a capitalist society that works by providing some incentive for investment to occur in your business. This is what temporary intellectual monopolies (copyrights and patents; the term "intellectual property" is misleading, and you should avoid using it) were supposed to make happen.

The idea of you having control, and your cold dead fingers around your idea as the gub'mint is dragging it away from you, is dishonest propaganda by those in power who want to keep it. You don't need control per se to innovate; it has almost nothing directly to do with the economics of the situation.

'Spam', as it is called, is a byproduct of the capitalist way of life. Businesses are forced to advertise online using the most intrusive means possible in order to scavange the crumbs of the pie of life. But what if we removed this artificial competition? Couldn't we replace with a society of mutual cooperation?

Now, I'm not saying that I hate America (in fact, I hold the founding tenets of understanding and tolerance dear to my heart), but every great civilization needs a few minor adjustments along the way. That, my comrades, is why I feel that it is time for America to embrace socialism.

Under socialism, spam would disappear! The Internet would be full of interesting and informative information, instead of the barren wasteland of corporate sanctioned propaganda it is today!

Of course, the change would be quite a shock to American culture, but is this not the nation that escaped the shackles of the tyrannical British!? Surely this cannot be so hard!?

For the sake of the children, I pray that it is not. I look forward to USA (the greatest nation on Earth) joining the rest of the developed world in the socialist paradise.

Environmentalism is hurting us:

Remember Taxol and the Yew tree?

What about the Klamath Water War?

How about the Firefighters killed by the Forest Service?

Environmentalism is wrong because it holds nature, not man, as the standard of value.

This is version 0.6 of a troll HOWTO, sort of a companion piece to jsm's excellent troll FAQ. As a draft, comments and criticism are always welcome, if not appreciated :)

Section 1 - Trolling techniques

There are techniques used by successful trolls to elicit the maximum amount of responses from unthinking /.ers. This section is dedicated to explaining how to use these in the course of your trolls. Remember though, a great troll can break any or all of these and still be successful...

• Timing

  Because you're posting as an AC, your troll will generally be ignored in favour of posters using their accounts, and so getting in early is essential. A good guideline is to get into the first 20 posts, so that people reading the article will see the troll before it is swamped out. One way of increasing the speed with which you get your troll into play is to prepare them beforehand, and then quickly customise them for the current article. This is easier than it sounds since /. typically repeats stories with small variations and runs lots of similar stories.

  Note that this is why Jon Katz stories are pretty worthless as trolling material - by the time you've found the article and prepared a troll there's already 50+ posts on it, most of them flaming Jon Katz anyway :)

• Exposure

  Once you've got your troll in, you need people to actually read it. You also want replies - /.ers are more likely to read your troll if it starts a large thread. You also want to remember that some people have set their comment thresholds to values higher than 0 - to get the attention of these you either want to get your post moderated up (see Style, below) or get a reply which gets moderated up to 4 or 5, in which case your troll becomes visible to all.

• Accounts

  An alternative to the time-honoured tradition of AC trolling is that of creating a "troll" account. This gives you the advantage of posting at 1 rather than 0, and slashbots are more likely to take you seriously, especially if you at least sound reasonable. If you do this, try to avoid posting stuff where it is obvious you're a troll under the account - post it anoymously instead - some slightly more canny readers actually check your user info before they reply. Not many though :)

  The ultimate goal of the troll account is to secure the +1 bonus, which is currently received once you hit 26 points of Karma. To get there, employ the techniques of karma whoring that we see every day on /. and watch the karma roll in. And of course once you get the +1 bonus, the world is your oyster in terms of /. Posts made at a default of 2 hit even those people with the threshold of 2, are more likely to get moderated up even further if they are at all coherent, and people tend to lose their critical thinking abilities in the face of the +1 bonus. Milk it for all it's worth.

• Layout

  To get people reading it a troll needs to be easily readable. Make sure you break it down into easily digestible paragraphs, use HTML tags where appropriate (but always make sure you close them properly) and use whitespace appropriately.

• Size

  Generally a troll shouldn't be too short, otherwise it'll get lost in the crowd. A workable minimum is a couple of medium paragraphs. Conversely, it shouldn't be too long, or no-one will bother to read it. Keep it to a happy medium.

• Spelling

  Whilst spelling is important if you want the troll to be taken "seriously", key spelling mistakes can draw out the spelling zealots, especially if you mis-spell the name of a venerated /. hero, like Linus Torveldes or Richard Strawlman (thanks dmg). Related to this is the use of the wrong word, explaining an acronym as being something it isn't or making a word into an acronym even when it isn't.

• Subject

  The subject line needs to draw attention to your post without making it obvious that it is a troll. A simple statement of the main point of your argument can work here.

  Style

  Once you realise that most moderators don't bother to read past the first paragraph or two, you can use this fact to craft trolls that can be moderated up as "Insightful" (note that I mean this in the /. sense rather than the real-world sense). Start off fairly reasonable, making statements that are /. friendly and not being too controversial. As the troll goes on, make it more and more controversial, building it up for the coup de grace in the final paragraph.

• Linking

  As we all know, a post with links is considered "informative" by the /. crowd. Moderators love it, and they rarely check the links, so be sure to include as many as possible. And make them wrong - a link to the Perl website should instead point to the Python website instead, and vice versa. The other alternative to incorrect links is "useful" links to places like www.linux.org and i.e. places /.ers could never have found on their own :)

• Feeding

  The ideal troll requires no feeding - it runs on its own, generating flamewars between clueless /.ers for your amusement. But often a troll requires some help and so you should consider feeding it. Feeding is best reserved for people making either completely clueless responses, people making responses with holes in, or those wonderful people who write a 2000-word point-by-point rebuttal of your troll.

• Know your audience

  Always keep in mind the kind of things advocated on /. so that you can play on and against them. This is why anti-Linux, creationist, gun-loving, pro-corporation trolls work well - the vast majority of /.ers hold the opposite viewpoints. And if a few people agree with you, so much the better - it merely validates your viewpoint in the eyes of readers.

• Arrogance

  Be arrogant. You, as a troll, know that you're right. No other explanation could exist. The wronger the "fact", the more assertively you should state it. Make it clear that you are better than everyone else - you know the truth and they are just too stupid to realise it. Use plenty of sarcasm, and use "quotes" to show it to people too dumb to realise.

• Offensiveness

  Being offensive in your initial troll can be counter-productive - it causes moderators to mark you down as flamebait in general. But if you're feeding, then you can get away with calling /.ers all kinds of things. Make broad generalisations about /. readers - call them "long-haired Linux zealots", "socialist open-source bigots" or whatever. Stereotyping is encouraged - people always want to think that they're an individual, and will point this out to you given half a chance.

• Indifference

  Great for articles with a political or social bent, this kind of troll expresses complete indifference to the topic at hand, wondering who on Earth cares about it. An alternative method is to say that the topic only concerns a certain group of people - criminals, idiots, hackers (always use this instead of crackers) or whatever group you want to offend.

• Sympathy

  Appear to take the same stance as the people you're trying to troll - claim you're as much a fan of Linux as the next man, but... This way you can make all kinds of claims in the sure knowledge that you actually know what you're talking about. A great phrase to use here is "In my experience". Remember to act like all the things you're pointing out are unfortunate but true.

• The common touch

  Always accuse /.ers of being elitist. This is an easy thing to do seeing as a lot of them are. Claim that is their grandmother couldn't use it, then they are just into it to feel better than Joe Sixpack rather than "doing it for the average user". This is always great for working into anti-Linux trolls - attack command-line tools and poorly designed desktops.

• The 31337 touch

  The opposite of the above. Claim that technology or whatever is only for the elite of society and that any attempt to open it up for everyone is wrong, an attack on intellectualism and possibly even dangerous. If people were meant to understand these things then they would, and it's their fault if they're too stupid to learn.

• Contradiction

  Never be afraid to contradict yourself, even in the space of a single sentence. The phrases "I am a top programmer who codes in VB" or "I am a supporter of open source who uses NT at work and 95 at home" will be sure to get a response from some weenie smugly pointing out the contradiction. Confuse the issue more by engaging in contradiction when you are feeding - this will confuse /.ers who will then make even more stupid replies, leaving them even more wide open for response.

  Clues

  If you're feeling brave, give the reader clues that this is an obvious troll. The classic example here is dmg's stock phrase "I am often accused of trolling (whatever that is)", but also feel free to use phrases like "I have not read the article, and I don't know much about XYZ but I feel I must comment". If anyone responds to a troll with these kinds of clues in it, feel free to bask in the glow of knee-jerk /. responses.

• Denial

  If you're unlucky someone will accuse you of being a troll (surely not!) and try and ruin it for you. If you don't want it all to end there, then be sure to counter it by accusing them of being small-minded and petty, saying that it's easier for them to say it's a troll than to accept that people have different opinions. Be sure to say this in the subject line, especially if their subject was the infamous "YHBT. YHL. HAND."

• Claiming credit

  Given that /. has its community of regular trolls (hi guys!), it's only polite to publish your troll on one of the so-called "hidden" forums for all to see and admire. This way, you get to bask in the praise of other trolls, they get to contribute to your's if they want to, and you get an easy way to find the troll later on when you want to check on its progress :)

  As for when to post it, that's a matter of opinion really. You can either post it straight away or leave it will after people start biting. Remember that the troll forum is also frequented by non-trolls, and sometimes you may get a self-declared "troll-buster" try and expose you. But remember, /.ers always post before thinking, and often it doesn't matter at all.

  There is no real current forum at the moment thanks to various spammers hitting the sids, but try trolltalk, the original troll sid started by 80md and osm way back in the day. Generally all postings are done there as an AC, with your name at the end of the post. Include a link to the troll somewhere in the text, which ideally will be directly to the post and its replies - click on the #XX link in the thread to get there.

• Ending the troll

  Sometimes you just get bored with a troll, or people start posting genuinely thoughtful stuff in reply (it does happen). When this happens it might be time to own up to the troll with a helpful "YHBT. YHL. HAND." post. Sometimes people will carry on a discussion of the issue, and if you're really lucky (and it was a great troll) they will completely fail to believe you and carry on arguing. If that happens, pat yourself on the back for writing a great troll :)

• The cheap $3 crack

  Finally, when all else fails and your troll gets moderated down to (-1, Troll) within ten seconds of you posting it, the only honourable thing to do is to accuse the moderators of smoking the cheap $3 crack (again) and give up :(

Section 2 - Types of troll

1. The Maniac

   Probably the most popular kind of troll, the Maniac holds an opinion on something, and won't budge from that opinion no matter what evidence to the contrary is presented. If challenged, the Maniac will simply get more and more agitated and abusive, deriding his opponents as "idiots", "wrong-thinking", "dangerous" and "subversive". Generally the Maniac takes a position that opposes the prevalent /. beliefs, but a similar effect can be achieved by taking a typical /. viewpoint and pushing it to ridiculous extremes.

   Maniacs can be crafted for practically every article /. posts, although some are more obvious targets than others. Civil liberty articles, especially on things like censorship, DMCA, UCITA that really get /.ers riled up, are usually extremely fruitful grounds for a well-crafted maniac. The other obvious type of article is anything which could possibly involve religion, especially evolution :)

   Here are some fruitful avenues to explore:

   • The right-wing

     Always popular, the right-wing maniac (RWM) is a God-fearing, gun-toting, flag-waving American, and proud of it. They don't care about the rest of the world, unless it's to "prove" that America is better than everything else, and they cannot stand liberal whining over civil rights. They hate the moral decay of America and want it to revert into a nation of heterosexual, Christian whites like it was meant to be. Woe betide anyone that dares to suggest otherwise.

   • Religion

     There are two ways to approach this kind of maniac. The harder to pull off is the militant atheist, but this is quite common amongst /. posters and you would have to be very offensive to get this to work. Of course with religion trolls, the argument can go on for ever once it's started... The more common approach is the Christian fundamentalist. They are ignorant, intolerant and bigoted in the extreme. For them the Bible is the inerrant word of God revealed to man - it contains no flaws and no contradictions. Thus they are strict Creationists - mentions of evolution or cosmology will set them off on vitriolic rants. Flaming denunciations of anyone daring to contradict the "Word of God" are the way to go, and any kind of proof can always be ignored by appealing to "secular humanist brainwashing". And let's not forget, the USA is the greatest nation on Earth because it has the righteous power of Jesus Christ behind it.

   • Ideology

     Pick a philosophy, any philosophy. This troll is a troll with a cause - they have found some kind of ideological truth, and are out to expose every other philosophy as a sham. Whether it be libertarianism, objectivism, communism or capitalism, this troll will point out the obvious "flaws" in any other philosophies, whilst spouting dogma about their own. And the best thing is - you don't even need to know that much about what you're spouting - making doctrinaire mistakes will get both sides of the argument flaming you, adding to the fun.

   • Software

     This is an old favourite and crops up in many forms, covering the gamut from OS maniacs (Linux zealots, MS-apologists or embittered BSD fanatics), language maniacs (Pascal vs. C, C vs. C++, C++ vs. Java, Perl vs. Python, VB vs. everything), application maniacs(GIMP vs. Photoshop, Netscape vs. IE, vi vs. emacs) and also includes people who complain about how technology should only be for the 31337 hackers.Guns

     Americans love their guns, and will always fight passionately for their Constitutionally guarenteed rights to bear arms and shoot people. Even the slightest hint of criticism of this will bring down the wrath of a thousand and one enraged gun-owners on you, so it's always a great point to work into a troll :)

2. The Expert

   The Expert is someone who is "savvy" in their particular field, and is perfectly willing to give their opinion on any topic even vauguely related to their field. The Expert is most likely to be from a field which /.ers as a rule despise - the classic example is dumb marketing guy, but try consultants, lawyers, politicians, lobbyists, executives, journalists (just think Jon Katz). With this kind of troll sweeping statements with little content are the norm, along wire dire portents of future catastrophe and dark hints of "insider knowledge".

   Some possible angles to exploit:

   • Industry knowledge

     The expert knows the computing industry from the inside - as a long-term pro, they can dispense knowledge knowing that they can "speak for the industry". Their smug self-satisfaction is bound to annoy, as is any suggestion that things aren't the way that /.ers would like it - saying "Linux requires the rock-solid guarantee of a trusted company like Microsoft" or "Apache cannot be trusted for mission-critical enterprise platforms" is guaranteed to get you denials explaining exactly why you're wrong, in excruciating detail.

   • Helpful hints

     With their tech-savvy (or law-savvy or whatever) experience, the expert is obviously the best person to point out what's wrong with things or to give out useful "factual" information. In fact this probably works best with lawyer trolls - for all that /.ers protest "IANAL", they certainly seem to think they could be, and any mistakes you make will send them rushing to prove themselves by correcting you.

3. Offtopic Trolls

   Not really a "troll" in the strict Jargon File sense of the word, but they certainly should be included here :) This category includes parodies, offtopic weirdness any all kinds of amusing stuff. Not really my area of expertise, this stuff is mainly done by gnarphlager and opensourceman. Thanks to gnarphlager for this section.

   Offtopic trolls, like any other, come in almost as many colours as an iMac, but generally not as cute. But then again, a good offtopic "troll" can affect more people than a repulsive little gumdrop on your desk, because you need to have someone SEE your desk before they can react. Simple? Moreso than even my overblown prose could indicate. Some basic examples:

   1. The serial troll

      Write a story. Keep expanding it. It doesn't matter what article you post it under, so long as it's high up. If you want people to recognize you, pick a couple themes or symbols, and carry them on throughout the story. Other alternatives include back linking or including the entire story, but adding more each time. Be funny if you want. Or if you don't feel like being funny, just be really weird. Someone will react.

   2. The random troll

      This has nothing to do with anything. Be it a stream of consciousness rant, or a description of the corner of your desk. Another favorite is a monologue, read as if spoken from any one given entity to another. The more outlandish, the better (a pair of socks talking to a mousepad, for example). If you really wanted to be artsy, work in an actual metaphor or legitimate meaning behind it, but it's not necessary.

   3. The vaguely related troll

      Start out with a comment about the article. Have a definite opinion of it. Then, after a little while, disintegrate into randomness. All roads eventually can eventually lead to cheese (yum), Natalie Portman, cannibalism, toasters, squirrels, futons, you name it. All it takes is a little bit of creativity. Oh, and feel free to use other trolls' motifs. Open source and all that ;-)

   General tips:

   • If it's funny for a fleeting moment, then it's worth posting.
   • Puns. Puns are only less vile than mimes, but it's hard to mime on /. So feel free/obligated to litter your offtopic and random bits with puns. Hurt the bastards. And if they're sick enough to laugh at them, then they'll eventually end up here ;-)
   • Obscure cultural references and injokes are always good. SOMEONE will get them eventually.
   • Several drafts of a serial or random post are common, but true elegance is being able to come up with something on the spot that still makes the top 40 posts (on a post-heavy article)

Section 3 - Useful trolling links

The following links contain background information useful for trolls needing quick quotes and "expert" opinions to include.

1. General purpose links
   • ddi.digital.net/~gandalf/trollfaq.html - How to deal with USENET trolls - learn your enemy :)
   • www.don-lindsay-archive.org/skeptic/arguments.html - A List Of Fallacious Arguments - Learn them and use them liberally
   • www.altairiv.demon.co.uk/troll/trollfaq.html - USENET troll HOWTO
   • www.baiting.org - Baiting.org
   • www.fieldingtravel.com/df/index.htm - Fielding's DangerFinder - A guide to what and where's dangerous
   
   
2. Religious links
   • www.godhatesamerica.com/ - God Hates America
   • www.chalcedon.edu/creed.html - The Creed of Christian Reconstruction
   • www.demonbuster.com - How to cast out your demons and do spiritual warfare
   • riceinfo.rice.edu/armadillo/Sciacademy/riggins/thi ngs.htm - Things Creationists hate
   • www.icr.org/ - Institute for Creation Research
   • www.xenu.net - Operation Clambake - The fight against Scientology on the net
   • www.hom.net/~angels/ - Citizens for the Ten Commandments
   • www.bju.edu/rcnbc.html - The difference between Catholics and Christians
   • www.geocities.com/prazske00/biblequotes.html - Bible quotes by category
   
   
3. Political/economy links
   • www.aynrand.org - The Ayn Rand Institute
   • www.reason.com - Libertarian site
   • www.freerepublic.com - Right-wing stuff
   • www.jbs.org - Excellent site for all kinds of right-wingery
   • www.dack.com/web/bullshit.html - Web economy bullshit generator
   
   
4. Crackpot science links
   • www.fixedearth.com - The Earth Is Not Moving
   • www.jir.com/index.htm - The Journal of Irreproducible Results
   
   

This is version 0.6 of a troll HOWTO, sort of a companion piece to jsm's excellent troll FAQ. As a draft, comments and criticism are always welcome, if not appreciated :)

Section 1 - Trolling techniques

There are techniques used by successful trolls to elicit the maximum amount of responses from unthinking /.ers. This section is dedicated to explaining how to use these in the course of your trolls. Remember though, a great troll can break any or all of these and still be successful...

• Timing

  Because you're posting as an AC, your troll will generally be ignored in favour of posters using their accounts, and so getting in early is essential. A good guideline is to get into the first 20 posts, so that people reading the article will see the troll before it is swamped out. One way of increasing the speed with which you get your troll into play is to prepare them beforehand, and then quickly customise them for the current article. This is easier than it sounds since /. typically repeats stories with small variations and runs lots of similar stories.

  Note that this is why Jon Katz stories are pretty worthless as trolling material - by the time you've found the article and prepared a troll there's already 50+ posts on it, most of them flaming Jon Katz anyway :)

• Exposure

  Once you've got your troll in, you need people to actually read it. You also want replies - /.ers are more likely to read your troll if it starts a large thread. You also want to remember that some people have set their comment thresholds to values higher than 0 - to get the attention of these you either want to get your post moderated up (see Style, below) or get a reply which gets moderated up to 4 or 5, in which case your troll becomes visible to all.

• Accounts

  An alternative to the time-honoured tradition of AC trolling is that of creating a "troll" account. This gives you the advantage of posting at 1 rather than 0, and slashbots are more likely to take you seriously, especially if you at least sound reasonable. If you do this, try to avoid posting stuff where it is obvious you're a troll under the account - post it anoymously instead - some slightly more canny readers actually check your user info before they reply. Not many though :)

  The ultimate goal of the troll account is to secure the +1 bonus, which is currently received once you hit 26 points of Karma. To get there, employ the techniques of karma whoring that we see every day on /. and watch the karma roll in. And of course once you get the +1 bonus, the world is your oyster in terms of /. Posts made at a default of 2 hit even those people with the threshold of 2, are more likely to get moderated up even further if they are at all coherent, and people tend to lose their critical thinking abilities in the face of the +1 bonus. Milk it for all it's worth.

• Layout

  To get people reading it a troll needs to be easily readable. Make sure you break it down into easily digestible paragraphs, use HTML tags where appropriate (but always make sure you close them properly) and use whitespace appropriately.

• Size

  Generally a troll shouldn't be too short, otherwise it'll get lost in the crowd. A workable minimum is a couple of medium paragraphs. Conversely, it shouldn't be too long, or no-one will bother to read it. Keep it to a happy medium.

• Spelling

  Whilst spelling is important if you want the troll to be taken "seriously", key spelling mistakes can draw out the spelling zealots, especially if you mis-spell the name of a venerated /. hero, like Linus Torveldes or Richard Strawlman (thanks dmg). Related to this is the use of the wrong word, explaining an acronym as being something it isn't or making a word into an acronym even when it isn't.

• Subject

  The subject line needs to draw attention to your post without making it obvious that it is a troll. A simple statement of the main point of your argument can work here.

  Style

  Once you realise that most moderators don't bother to read past the first paragraph or two, you can use this fact to craft trolls that can be moderated up as "Insightful" (note that I mean this in the /. sense rather than the real-world sense). Start off fairly reasonable, making statements that are /. friendly and not being too controversial. As the troll goes on, make it more and more controversial, building it up for the coup de grace in the final paragraph.

• Linking

  As we all know, a post with links is considered "informative" by the /. crowd. Moderators love it, and they rarely check the links, so be sure to include as many as possible. And make them wrong - a link to the Perl website should instead point to the Python website instead, and vice versa. The other alternative to incorrect links is "useful" links to places like www.linux.org and i.e. places /.ers could never have found on their own :)

• Feeding

  The ideal troll requires no feeding - it runs on its own, generating flamewars between clueless /.ers for your amusement. But often a troll requires some help and so you should consider feeding it. Feeding is best reserved for people making either completely clueless responses, people making responses with holes in, or those wonderful people who write a 2000-word point-by-point rebuttal of your troll.

• Know your audience

  Always keep in mind the kind of things advocated on /. so that you can play on and against them. This is why anti-Linux, creationist, gun-loving, pro-corporation trolls work well - the vast majority of /.ers hold the opposite viewpoints. And if a few people agree with you, so much the better - it merely validates your viewpoint in the eyes of readers.

• Arrogance

  Be arrogant. You, as a troll, know that you're right. No other explanation could exist. The wronger the "fact", the more assertively you should state it. Make it clear that you are better than everyone else - you know the truth and they are just too stupid to realise it. Use plenty of sarcasm, and use "quotes" to show it to people too dumb to realise.

• Offensiveness

  Being offensive in your initial troll can be counter-productive - it causes moderators to mark you down as flamebait in general. But if you're feeding, then you can get away with calling /.ers all kinds of things. Make broad generalisations about /. readers - call them "long-haired Linux zealots", "socialist open-source bigots" or whatever. Stereotyping is encouraged - people always want to think that they're an individual, and will point this out to you given half a chance.

• Indifference

  Great for articles with a political or social bent, this kind of troll expresses complete indifference to the topic at hand, wondering who on Earth cares about it. An alternative method is to say that the topic only concerns a certain group of people - criminals, idiots, hackers (always use this instead of crackers) or whatever group you want to offend.

• Sympathy

  Appear to take the same stance as the people you're trying to troll - claim you're as much a fan of Linux as the next man, but... This way you can make all kinds of claims in the sure knowledge that you actually know what you're talking about. A great phrase to use here is "In my experience". Remember to act like all the things you're pointing out are unfortunate but true.

• The common touch

  Always accuse /.ers of being elitist. This is an easy thing to do seeing as a lot of them are. Claim that is their grandmother couldn't use it, then they are just into it to feel better than Joe Sixpack rather than "doing it for the average user". This is always great for working into anti-Linux trolls - attack command-line tools and poorly designed desktops.

• The 31337 touch

  The opposite of the above. Claim that technology or whatever is only for the elite of society and that any attempt to open it up for everyone is wrong, an attack on intellectualism and possibly even dangerous. If people were meant to understand these things then they would, and it's their fault if they're too stupid to learn.

• Contradiction

  Never be afraid to contradict yourself, even in the space of a single sentence. The phrases "I am a top programmer who codes in VB" or "I am a supporter of open source who uses NT at work and 95 at home" will be sure to get a response from some weenie smugly pointing out the contradiction. Confuse the issue more by engaging in contradiction when you are feeding - this will confuse /.ers who will then make even more stupid replies, leaving them even more wide open for response.

  Clues

  If you're feeling brave, give the reader clues that this is an obvious troll. The classic example here is dmg's stock phrase "I am often accused of trolling (whatever that is)", but also feel free to use phrases like "I have not read the article, and I don't know much about XYZ but I feel I must comment". If anyone responds to a troll with these kinds of clues in it, feel free to bask in the glow of knee-jerk /. responses.

• Denial

  If you're unlucky someone will accuse you of being a troll (surely not!) and try and ruin it for you. If you don't want it all to end there, then be sure to counter it by accusing them of being small-minded and petty, saying that it's easier for them to say it's a troll than to accept that people have different opinions. Be sure to say this in the subject line, especially if their subject was the infamous "YHBT. YHL. HAND."

• Claiming credit

  Given that /. has its community of regular trolls (hi guys!), it's only polite to publish your troll on one of the so-called "hidden" forums for all to see and admire. This way, you get to bask in the praise of other trolls, they get to contribute to your's if they want to, and you get an easy way to find the troll later on when you want to check on its progress :)

  As for when to post it, that's a matter of opinion really. You can either post it straight away or leave it will after people start biting. Remember that the troll forum is also frequented by non-trolls, and sometimes you may get a self-declared "troll-buster" try and expose you. But remember, /.ers always post before thinking, and often it doesn't matter at all.

  There is no real current forum at the moment thanks to various spammers hitting the sids, but try trolltalk, the original troll sid started by 80md and osm way back in the day. Generally all postings are done there as an AC, with your name at the end of the post. Include a link to the troll somewhere in the text, which ideally will be directly to the post and its replies - click on the #XX link in the thread to get there.

• Ending the troll

  Sometimes you just get bored with a troll, or people start posting genuinely thoughtful stuff in reply (it does happen). When this happens it might be time to own up to the troll with a helpful "YHBT. YHL. HAND." post. Sometimes people will carry on a discussion of the issue, and if you're really lucky (and it was a great troll) they will completely fail to believe you and carry on arguing. If that happens, pat yourself on the back for writing a great troll :)

• The cheap $3 crack

  Finally, when all else fails and your troll gets moderated down to (-1, Troll) within ten seconds of you posting it, the only honourable thing to do is to accuse the moderators of smoking the cheap $3 crack (again) and give up :(

Section 2 - Types of troll

1. The Maniac

   Probably the most popular kind of troll, the Maniac holds an opinion on something, and won't budge from that opinion no matter what evidence to the contrary is presented. If challenged, the Maniac will simply get more and more agitated and abusive, deriding his opponents as "idiots", "wrong-thinking", "dangerous" and "subversive". Generally the Maniac takes a position that opposes the prevalent /. beliefs, but a similar effect can be achieved by taking a typical /. viewpoint and pushing it to ridiculous extremes.

   Maniacs can be crafted for practically every article /. posts, although some are more obvious targets than others. Civil liberty articles, especially on things like censorship, DMCA, UCITA that really get /.ers riled up, are usually extremely fruitful grounds for a well-crafted maniac. The other obvious type of article is anything which could possibly involve religion, especially evolution :)

   Here are some fruitful avenues to explore:

   • The right-wing

     Always popular, the right-wing maniac (RWM) is a God-fearing, gun-toting, flag-waving American, and proud of it. They don't care about the rest of the world, unless it's to "prove" that America is better than everything else, and they cannot stand liberal whining over civil rights. They hate the moral decay of America and want it to revert into a nation of heterosexual, Christian whites like it was meant to be. Woe betide anyone that dares to suggest otherwise.

   • Religion

     There are two ways to approach this kind of maniac. The harder to pull off is the militant atheist, but this is quite common amongst /. posters and you would have to be very offensive to get this to work. Of course with religion trolls, the argument can go on for ever once it's started... The more common approach is the Christian fundamentalist. They are ignorant, intolerant and bigoted in the extreme. For them the Bible is the inerrant word of God revealed to man - it contains no flaws and no contradictions. Thus they are strict Creationists - mentions of evolution or cosmology will set them off on vitriolic rants. Flaming denunciations of anyone daring to contradict the "Word of God" are the way to go, and any kind of proof can always be ignored by appealing to "secular humanist brainwashing". And let's not forget, the USA is the greatest nation on Earth because it has the righteous power of Jesus Christ behind it.

   • Ideology

     Pick a philosophy, any philosophy. This troll is a troll with a cause - they have found some kind of ideological truth, and are out to expose every other philosophy as a sham. Whether it be libertarianism, objectivism, communism or capitalism, this troll will point out the obvious "flaws" in any other philosophies, whilst spouting dogma about their own. And the best thing is - you don't even need to know that much about what you're spouting - making doctrinaire mistakes will get both sides of the argument flaming you, adding to the fun.

   • Software

     This is an old favourite and crops up in many forms, covering the gamut from OS maniacs (Linux zealots, MS-apologists or embittered BSD fanatics), language maniacs (Pascal vs. C, C vs. C++, C++ vs. Java, Perl vs. Python, VB vs. everything), application maniacs(GIMP vs. Photoshop, Netscape vs. IE, vi vs. emacs) and also includes people who complain about how technology should only be for the 31337 hackers.Guns

     Americans love their guns, and will always fight passionately for their Constitutionally guarenteed rights to bear arms and shoot people. Even the slightest hint of criticism of this will bring down the wrath of a thousand and one enraged gun-owners on you, so it's always a great point to work into a troll :)

2. The Expert

   The Expert is someone who is "savvy" in their particular field, and is perfectly willing to give their opinion on any topic even vauguely related to their field. The Expert is most likely to be from a field which /.ers as a rule despise - the classic example is dumb marketing guy, but try consultants, lawyers, politicians, lobbyists, executives, journalists (just think Jon Katz). With this kind of troll sweeping statements with little content are the norm, along wire dire portents of future catastrophe and dark hints of "insider knowledge".

   Some possible angles to exploit:

   • Industry knowledge

     The expert knows the computing industry from the inside - as a long-term pro, they can dispense knowledge knowing that they can "speak for the industry". Their smug self-satisfaction is bound to annoy, as is any suggestion that things aren't the way that /.ers would like it - saying "Linux requires the rock-solid guarantee of a trusted company like Microsoft" or "Apache cannot be trusted for mission-critical enterprise platforms" is guaranteed to get you denials explaining exactly why you're wrong, in excruciating detail.

   • Helpful hints

     With their tech-savvy (or law-savvy or whatever) experience, the expert is obviously the best person to point out what's wrong with things or to give out useful "factual" information. In fact this probably works best with lawyer trolls - for all that /.ers protest "IANAL", they certainly seem to think they could be, and any mistakes you make will send them rushing to prove themselves by correcting you.

   Offtopic Trolls

   Not really a "troll" in the strict Jargon File sense of the word, but they certainly should be included here :) This category includes parodies, offtopic weirdness any all kinds of amusing stuff. Not really my area of expertise, this stuff is mainly done by gnarphlager and opensourceman. Thanks to gnarphlager for this section.

   Offtopic trolls, like any other, come in almost as many colours as an iMac, but generally not as cute. But then again, a good offtopic "troll" can affect more people than a repulsive little gumdrop on your desk, because you need to have someone SEE your desk before they can react. Simple? Moreso than even my overblown prose could indicate. Some basic examples:

   1. The serial troll

      Write a story. Keep expanding it. It doesn't matter what article you post it under, so long as it's high up. If you want people to recognize you, pick a couple themes or symbols, and carry them on throughout the story. Other alternatives include back linking or including the entire story, but adding more each time. Be funny if you want. Or if you don't feel like being funny, just be really weird. Someone will react.

   2. The random troll

      This has nothing to do with anything. Be it a stream of consciousness rant, or a description of the corner of your desk. Another favorite is a monologue, read as if spoken from any one given entity to another. The more outlandish, the better (a pair of socks talking to a mousepad, for example). If you really wanted to be artsy, work in an actual metaphor or legitimate meaning behind it, but it's not necessary.

   3. The vaguely related troll

      Start out with a comment about the article. Have a definite opinion of it. Then, after a little while, disintegrate into randomness. All roads eventually can eventually lead to cheese (yum), Natalie Portman, cannibalism, toasters, squirrels, futons, you name it. All it takes is a little bit of creativity. Oh, and feel free to use other trolls' motifs. Open source and all that ;-)

   General tips:

   • If it's funny for a fleeting moment, then it's worth posting.
   • Puns. Puns are only less vile than mimes, but it's hard to mime on /. So feel free/obligated to litter your offtopic and random bits with puns. Hurt the bastards. And if they're sick enough to laugh at them, then they'll eventually end up here ;-)
   • Obscure cultural references and injokes are always good. SOMEONE will get them eventually.
   • Several drafts of a serial or random post are common, but true elegance is being able to come up with something on the spot that still makes the top 40 posts (on a post-heavy article)

Section 3 - Useful trolling links

The following links contain background information useful for trolls needing quick quotes and "expert" opinions to include.

1. General purpose links
   • ddi.digital.net/~gandalf/trollfaq.html - How to deal with USENET trolls - learn your enemy :)
   • www.don-lindsay-archive.org/skeptic/arguments.html - A List Of Fallacious Arguments - Learn them and use them liberally
   • www.altairiv.demon.co.uk/troll/trollfaq.html - USENET troll HOWTO
   • www.baiting.org - Baiting.org
   • www.fieldingtravel.com/df/index.htm - Fielding's DangerFinder - A guide to what and where's dangerous
   
   
2. Religious links
   • www.godhatesamerica.com/ - God Hates America
   • www.chalcedon.edu/creed.html - The Creed of Christian Reconstruction
   • www.demonbuster.com - How to cast out your demons and do spiritual warfare
   • riceinfo.rice.edu/armadillo/Sciacademy/riggins/thi ngs.htm - Things Creationists hate
   • www.icr.org/ - Institute for Creation Research
   • www.xenu.net - Operation Clambake - The fight against Scientology on the net
   • www.hom.net/~angels/ - Citizens for the Ten Commandments
   • www.bju.edu/rcnbc.html - The difference between Catholics and Christians
   • www.geocities.com/prazske00/biblequotes.html - Bible quotes by category
   
   
3. Political/economy links
   • www.aynrand.org - The Ayn Rand Institute
   • www.reason.com - Libertarian site
   • www.freerepublic.com - Right-wing stuff
   • www.jbs.org - Excellent site for all kinds of right-wingery
   • www.dack.com/web/bullshit.html - Web economy bullshit generator
   
   
4. Crackpot science links
   • www.fixedearth.com - The Earth Is Not Moving
   • www.jir.com/index.htm - The Journal of Irreproducible Results
   
   

Section 1 - Trolling techniques

There are techniques used by successful trolls to elicit the maximum amount of responses from unthinking /.ers. This section is dedicated to explaining how to use these in the course of your trolls. Remember though, a great troll can break any or all of these and still be successful...

• Timing

  Because you're posting as an AC, your troll will generally be ignored in favour of posters using their accounts, and so getting in early is essential. A good guideline is to get into the first 20 posts, so that people reading the article will see the troll before it is swamped out. One way of increasing the speed with which you get your troll into play is to prepare them beforehand, and then quickly customise them for the current article. This is easier than it sounds since /. typically repeats stories with small variations and runs lots of similar stories.

  Note that this is why Jon Katz stories are pretty worthless as trolling material - by the time you've found the article and prepared a troll there's already 50+ posts on it, most of them flaming Jon Katz anyway :)

• Exposure

  Once you've got your troll in, you need people to actually read it. You also want replies - /.ers are more likely to read your troll if it starts a large thread. You also want to remember that some people have set their comment thresholds to values higher than 0 - to get the attention of these you either want to get your post moderated up (see Style, below) or get a reply which gets moderated up to 4 or 5, in which case your troll becomes visible to all.

• Accounts

  An alternative to the time-honoured tradition of AC trolling is that of creating a "troll" account. This gives you the advantage of posting at 1 rather than 0, and slashbots are more likely to take you seriously, especially if you at least sound reasonable. If you do this, try to avoid posting stuff where it is obvious you're a troll under the account - post it anoymously instead - some slightly more canny readers actually check your user info before they reply. Not many though :)

  The ultimate goal of the troll account is to secure the +1 bonus, which is currently received once you hit 26 points of Karma. To get there, employ the techniques of karma whoring that we see every day on /. and watch the karma roll in. And of course once you get the +1 bonus, the world is your oyster in terms of /. Posts made at a default of 2 hit even those people with the threshold of 2, are more likely to get moderated up even further if they are at all coherent, and people tend to lose their critical thinking abilities in the face of the +1 bonus. Milk it for all it's worth.

• Layout

  To get people reading it a troll needs to be easily readable. Make sure you break it down into easily digestible paragraphs, use HTML tags where appropriate (but always make sure you close them properly) and use whitespace appropriately.

• Size

  Generally a troll shouldn't be too short, otherwise it'll get lost in the crowd. A workable minimum is a couple of medium paragraphs. Conversely, it shouldn't be too long, or no-one will bother to read it. Keep it to a happy medium.

• Spelling

  Whilst spelling is important if you want the troll to be taken "seriously", key spelling mistakes can draw out the spelling zealots, especially if you mis-spell the name of a venerated /. hero, like Linus Torveldes or Richard Strawlman (thanks dmg). Related to this is the use of the wrong word, explaining an acronym as being something it isn't or making a word into an acronym even when it isn't.

• Subject

  The subject line needs to draw attention to your post without making it obvious that it is a troll. A simple statement of the main point of your argument can work here.

• Style

  Once you realise that most moderators don't bother to read past the first paragraph or two, you can use this fact to craft trolls that can be moderated up as "Insightful" (note that I mean this in the /. sense rather than the real-world sense). Start off fairly reasonable, making statements that are /. friendly and not being too controversial. As the troll goes on, make it more and more controversial, building it up for the coup de grace in the final paragraph.

• Linking

  As we all know, a post with links is considered "informative" by the /. crowd. Moderators love it, and they rarely check the links, so be sure to include as many as possible. And make them wrong - a link to the Perl website should instead point to the Python website instead, and vice versa. The other alternative to incorrect links is "useful" links to places like www.linux.org and www.microsoft.com i.e. places /.ers could never have found on their own :)

• Feeding

  The ideal troll requires no feeding - it runs on its own, generating flamewars between clueless /.ers for your amusement. But often a troll requires some help and so you should consider feeding it. Feeding is best reserved for people making either completely clueless responses, people making responses with holes in, or those wonderful people who write a 2000-word point-by-point rebuttal of your troll.

• Know your audience

  Always keep in mind the kind of things advocated on /. so that you can play on and against them. This is why anti-Linux, creationist, gun-loving, pro-corporation trolls work well - the vast majority of /.ers hold the opposite viewpoints. And if a few people agree with you, so much the better - it merely validates your viewpoint in the eyes of readers.

• Arrogance

  Be arrogant. You, as a troll, know that you're right. No other explanation could exist. The wronger the "fact", the more assertively you should state it. Make it clear that you are better than everyone else - you know the truth and they are just too stupid to realise it. Use plenty of sarcasm, and use "quotes" to show it to people too dumb to realise.

• Offensiveness

  Being offensive in your initial troll can be counter-productive - it causes moderators to mark you down as flamebait in general. But if you're feeding, then you can get away with calling /.ers all kinds of things. Make broad generalisations about /. readers - call them "long-haired Linux zealots", "socialist open-source bigots" or whatever. Stereotyping is encouraged - people always want to think that they're an individual, and will point this out to you given half a chance.

• Indifference

  Great for articles with a political or social bent, this kind of troll expresses complete indifference to the topic at hand, wondering who on Earth cares about it. An alternative method is to say that the topic only concerns a certain group of people - criminals, idiots, hackers (always use this instead of crackers) or whatever group you want to offend.

• Sympathy

  Appear to take the same stance as the people you're trying to troll - claim you're as much a fan of Linux as the next man, but... This way you can make all kinds of claims in the sure knowledge that you actually know what you're talking about. A great phrase to use here is "In my experience". Remember to act like all the things you're pointing out are unfortunate but true.

• The common touch

  Always accuse /.ers of being elitist. This is an easy thing to do seeing as a lot of them are. Claim that is their grandmother couldn't use it, then they are just into it to feel better than Joe Sixpack rather than "doing it for the average user". This is always great for working into anti-Linux trolls - attack command-line tools and poorly designed desktops.

• The 31337 touch

  The opposite of the above. Claim that technology or whatever is only for the elite of society and that any attempt to open it up for everyone is wrong, an attack on intellectualism and possibly even dangerous. If people were meant to understand these things then they would, and it's their fault if they're too stupid to learn.

• Contradiction

  Never be afraid to contradict yourself, even in the space of a single sentence. The phrases "I am a top programmer who codes in VB" or "I am a supporter of open source who uses NT at work and 95 at home" will be sure to get a response from some weenie smugly pointing out the contradiction. Confuse the issue more by engaging in contradiction when you are feeding - this will confuse /.ers who will then make even more stupid replies, leaving them even more wide open for response.

  Clues

  If you're feeling brave, give the reader clues that this is an obvious troll. The classic example here is dmg's stock phrase "I am often accused of trolling (whatever that is)", but also feel free to use phrases like "I have not read the article, and I don't know much about XYZ but I feel I must comment". If anyone responds to a troll with these kinds of clues in it, feel free to bask in the glow of knee-jerk /. responses.

• Denial

  If you're unlucky someone will accuse you of being a troll (surely not!) and try and ruin it for you. If you don't want it all to end there, then be sure to counter it by accusing them of being small-minded and petty, saying that it's easier for them to say it's a troll than to accept that people have different opinions. Be sure to say this in the subject line, especially if their subject was the infamous "YHBT. YHL. HAND."

• Claiming credit

  Given that /. has its community of regular trolls (hi guys!), it's only polite to publish your troll on one of the so-called "hidden" forums for all to see and admire. This way, you get to bask in the praise of other trolls, they get to contribute to your's if they want to, and you get an easy way to find the troll later on when you want to check on its progress :)

  As for when to post it, that's a matter of opinion really. You can either post it straight away or leave it will after people start biting. Remember that the troll forum is also frequented by non-trolls, and sometimes you may get a self-declared "troll-buster" try and expose you. But remember, /.ers always post before thinking, and often it doesn't matter at all.

  There is no real current forum at the moment thanks to various spammers hitting the sids, but try trolltalk, the original troll sid started by 80md and osm way back in the day. Generally all postings are done there as an AC, with your name at the end of the post. Include a link to the troll somewhere in the text, which ideally will be directly to the post and its replies - click on the #XX link in the thread to get there.

• Ending the troll

  Sometimes you just get bored with a troll, or people start posting genuinely thoughtful stuff in reply (it does happen). When this happens it might be time to own up to the troll with a helpful "YHBT. YHL. HAND." post. Sometimes people will carry on a discussion of the issue, and if you're really lucky (and it was a great troll) they will completely fail to believe you and carry on arguing. If that happens, pat yourself on the back for writing a great troll :)

• The cheap $3 crack

  Finally, when all else fails and your troll gets moderated down to (-1, Troll) within ten seconds of you posting it, the only honourable thing to do is to accuse the moderators of smoking the cheap $3 crack (again) and give up :(

Section 2 - Types of troll

1. The Maniac

   Probably the most popular kind of troll, the Maniac holds an opinion on something, and won't budge from that opinion no matter what evidence to the contrary is presented. If challenged, the Maniac will simply get more and more agitated and abusive, deriding his opponents as "idiots", "wrong-thinking", "dangerous" and "subversive". Generally the Maniac takes a position that opposes the prevalent /. beliefs, but a similar effect can be achieved by taking a typical /. viewpoint and pushing it to ridiculous extremes.

   Maniacs can be crafted for practically every article /. posts, although some are more obvious targets than others. Civil liberty articles, especially on things like censorship, DMCA, UCITA that really get /.ers riled up, are usually extremely fruitful grounds for a well-crafted maniac. The other obvious type of article is anything which could possibly involve religion, especially evolution :)

   Here are some fruitful avenues to explore:

   • The right-wing

     Always popular, the right-wing maniac (RWM) is a God-fearing, gun-toting, flag-waving American, and proud of it. They don't care about the rest of the world, unless it's to "prove" that America is better than everything else, and they cannot stand liberal whining over civil rights. They hate the moral decay of America and want it to revert into a nation of heterosexual, Christian whites like it was meant to be. Woe betide anyone that dares to suggest otherwise.

   • Religion

     There are two ways to approach this kind of maniac. The harder to pull off is the militant atheist, but this is quite common amongst /. posters and you would have to be very offensive to get this to work. Of course with religion trolls, the argument can go on for ever once it's started... The more common approach is the Christian fundamentalist. They are ignorant, intolerant and bigoted in the extreme. For them the Bible is the inerrant word of God revealed to man - it contains no flaws and no contradictions. Thus they are strict Creationists - mentions of evolution or cosmology will set them off on vitriolic rants. Flaming denunciations of anyone daring to contradict the "Word of God" are the way to go, and any kind of proof can always be ignored by appealing to "secular humanist brainwashing". And let's not forget, the USA is the greatest nation on Earth because it has the righteous power of Jesus Christ behind it.

   • Ideology

     Pick a philosophy, any philosophy. This troll is a troll with a cause - they have found some kind of ideological truth, and are out to expose every other philosophy as a sham. Whether it be libertarianism, objectivism, communism or capitalism, this troll will point out the obvious "flaws" in any other philosophies, whilst spouting dogma about their own. And the best thing is - you don't even need to know that much about what you're spouting - making doctrinaire mistakes will get both sides of the argument flaming you, adding to the fun.

   • Software

     This is an old favourite and crops up in many forms, covering the gamut from OS maniacs (Linux zealots, MS-apologists or embittered BSD fanatics), language maniacs (Pascal vs. C, C vs. C++, C++ vs. Java, Perl vs. Python, VB vs. everything), application maniacs(GIMP vs. Photoshop, Netscape vs. IE, vi vs. emacs) and also includes people who complain about how technology should only be for the 31337 hackers.

   • Guns

     Americans love their guns, and will always fight passionately for their Constitutionally guarenteed rights to bear arms and shoot people. Even the slightest hint of criticism of this will bring down the wrath of a thousand and one enraged gun-owners on you, so it's always a great point to work into a troll :)

2. The Expert

   The Expert is someone who is "savvy" in their particular field, and is perfectly willing to give their opinion on any topic even vauguely related to their field. The Expert is most likely to be from a field which /.ers as a rule despise - the classic example is dumb marketing guy, but try consultants, lawyers, politicians, lobbyists, executives, journalists (just think Jon Katz). With this kind of troll sweeping statements with little content are the norm, along wire dire portents of future catastrophe and dark hints of "insider knowledge".

   Some possible angles to exploit:

   • Industry knowledge

     The expert knows the computing industry from the inside - as a long-term pro, they can dispense knowledge knowing that they can "speak for the industry". Their smug self-satisfaction is bound to annoy, as is any suggestion that things aren't the way that /.ers would like it - saying "Linux requires the rock-solid guarantee of a trusted company like Microsoft" or "Apache cannot be trusted for mission-critical enterprise platforms" is guaranteed to get you denials explaining exactly why you're wrong, in excruciating detail.

   • Helpful hints

     With their tech-savvy (or law-savvy or whatever) experience, the expert is obviously the best person to point out what's wrong with things or to give out useful "factual" information. In fact this probably works best with lawyer trolls - for all that /.ers protest "IANAL", they certainly seem to think they could be, and any mistakes you make will send them rushing to prove themselves by correcting you.

3. Offtopic Trolls

   Not really a "troll" in the strict Jargon File sense of the word, but they certainly should be included here :) This category includes parodies, offtopic weirdness any all kinds of amusing stuff. Not really my area of expertise, this stuff is mainly done by gnarphlager and opensourceman. Thanks to gnarphlager for this section.

   Offtopic trolls, like any other, come in almost as many colours as an iMac, but generally not as cute. But then again, a good offtopic "troll" can affect more people than a repulsive little gumdrop on your desk, because you need to have someone SEE your desk before they can react. Simple? Moreso than even my overblown prose could indicate. Some basic examples:

   1. The serial troll

      Write a story. Keep expanding it. It doesn't matter what article you post it under, so long as it's high up. If you want people to recognize you, pick a couple themes or symbols, and carry them on throughout the story. Other alternatives include back linking or including the entire story, but adding more each time. Be funny if you want. Or if you don't feel like being funny, just be really weird. Someone will react.

   2. The random troll

      This has nothing to do with anything. Be it a stream of consciousness rant, or a description of the corner of your desk. Another favorite is a monologue, read as if spoken from any one given entity to another. The more outlandish, the better (a pair of socks talking to a mousepad, for example). If you really wanted to be artsy, work in an actual metaphor or legitimate meaning behind it, but it's not necessary.

   3. The vaguely related troll

      Start out with a comment about the article. Have a definite opinion of it. Then, after a little while, disintegrate into randomness. All roads eventually can eventually lead to cheese (yum), Natalie Portman, cannibalism, toasters, squirrels, futons, you name it. All it takes is a little bit of creativity. Oh, and feel free to use other trolls' motifs. Open source and all that ;-)

   General tips:

   • If it's funny for a fleeting moment, then it's worth posting.
   • Puns. Puns are only less vile than mimes, but it's hard to mime on /. So feel free/obligated to litter your offtopic and random bits with puns. Hurt the bastards. And if they're sick enough to laugh at them, then they'll eventually end up here ;-)
   • Obscure cultural references and injokes are always good. SOMEONE will get them eventually.
   • Several drafts of a serial or random post are common, but true elegance is being able to come up with something on the spot that still makes the top 40 posts (on a post-heavy article)

Section 3 - Useful trolling links

The following links contain background information useful for trolls needing quick quotes and "expert" opinions to include.

1. General purpose links
   • ddi.digital.net/~gandalf/trollfaq.html - How to deal with USENET trolls - learn your enemy :)
   • www.don-lindsay-archive.org/skeptic/arguments.html - A List Of Fallacious Arguments - Learn them and use them liberally
   • www.altairiv.demon.co.uk/troll/trollfaq.html - USENET troll HOWTO
   • www.baiting.org - Baiting.org
   • www.fieldingtravel.com/df/index.htm - Fielding's DangerFinder - A guide to what and where's dangerous
   
   
2. Religious links
   • www.godhatesamerica.com/ - God Hates America
   • www.chalcedon.edu/creed.html - The Creed of Christian Reconstruction
   • www.demonbuster.com - How to cast out your demons and do spiritual warfare
   • riceinfo.rice.edu/armadillo/Sciacademy/riggins/thi ngs.htm - Things Creationists hate
   • www.icr.org/ - Institute for Creation Research
   • www.xenu.net - Operation Clambake - The fight against Scientology on the net
   • www.hom.net/~angels/ - Citizens for the Ten Commandments
   • www.bju.edu/rcnbc.html - The difference between Catholics and Christians
   • www.geocities.com/prazske00/biblequotes.html - Bible quotes by category
   
   
3. Political/economy links
   • www.aynrand.org - The Ayn Rand Institute
   • www.reason.com - Libertarian site
   • www.freerepublic.com - Right-wing stuff
   • www.jbs.org - Excellent site for all kinds of right-wingery
   • www.dack.com/web/bullshit.html - Web economy bullshit generator
   
   
4. Crackpot science links
   • www.fixedearth.com - The Earth Is Not Moving
   • www.jir.com/index.htm - The Journal of Irreproducible Results
   
   

I'm sorry, but there is a science which studies this kind of thing, and it is called economics. You are contradicting centuries of accummulated scientific knowledge of economics. You are treading lightly where giants have exercised utmost care.

The consumer loses because competition based on cost requires the elimination of additional value in the supply chain. Quality, customer service, guarantees, product returns, post-sales service, what-have-you: it all is eliminated when the lowest price guarantee becomes the requirement for survival.

If the consumer can't correctly judge the value of different choices in the market, and goes for the "cheapest" (but seriously devalued) product, then he wholly deserves it when he gets fucked. Market economies don't just make demands of producers and laborers; they also make demands of consumers.

This is version 0.6 of a troll HOWTO, sort of a companion piece to jsm's excellent troll FAQ. As a draft, comments and criticism are always welcome, if not appreciated :)

There are techniques used by successful trolls to elicit the maximum amount of responses from unthinking /.ers. This section is dedicated to explaining how to use these in the course of your trolls. Remember though, a great troll can break any or all of these and still be successful...

• Timing

  Because you're posting as an AC, your troll will generally be ignored in favour of posters using their accounts, and so getting in early is essential. A good guideline is to get into the first 20 posts, so that people reading the article will see the troll before it is swamped out. One way of increasing the speed with which you get your troll into play is to prepare them beforehand, and then quickly customise them for the current article. This is easier than it sounds since /. typically repeats stories with small variations and runs lots of similar stories.

  Note that this is why Jon Katz stories are pretty worthless as trolling material - by the time you've found the article and prepared a troll there's already 50+ posts on it, most of them flaming Jon Katz anyway :)

• Exposure

  Once you've got your troll in, you need people to actually read it. You also want replies - /.ers are more likely to read your troll if it starts a large thread. You also want to remember that some people have set their comment thresholds to values higher than 0 - to get the attention of these you either want to get your post moderated up (see Style, below) or get a reply which gets moderated up to 4 or 5, in which case your troll becomes visible to all.

• Accounts

  An alternative to the time-honoured tradition of AC trolling is that of creating a "troll" account. This gives you the advantage of posting at 1 rather than 0, and slashbots are more likely to take you seriously, especially if you at least sound reasonable. If you do this, try to avoid posting stuff where it is obvious you're a troll under the account - post it anoymously instead - some slightly more canny readers actually check your user info before they reply. Not many though :)

  The ultimate goal of the troll account is to secure the +1 bonus, which is currently received once you hit 26 points of Karma. To get there, employ the techniques of karma whoring that we see every day on /. and watch the karma roll in. And of course once you get the +1 bonus, the world is your oyster in terms of /. Posts made at a default of 2 hit even those people with the threshold of 2, are more likely to get moderated up even further if they are at all coherent, and people tend to lose their critical thinking abilities in the face of the +1 bonus. Milk it for all it's worth.

• Layout

  To get people reading it a troll needs to be easily readable. Make sure you break it down into easily digestible paragraphs, use HTML tags where appropriate (but always make sure you close them properly) and use whitespace appropriately.

• Size

  Generally a troll shouldn't be too short, otherwise it'll get lost in the crowd. A workable minimum is a couple of medium paragraphs. Conversely, it shouldn't be too long, or no-one will bother to read it. Keep it to a happy medium.

• Spelling

  Whilst spelling is important if you want the troll to be taken "seriously", key spelling mistakes can draw out the spelling zealots, especially if you mis-spell the name of a venerated /. hero, like Linus Torveldes or Richard Strawlman (thanks dmg). Related to this is the use of the wrong word, explaining an acronym as being something it isn't or making a word into an acronym even when it isn't.

• Subject

  The subject line needs to draw attention to your post without making it obvious that it is a troll. A simple statement of the main point of your argument can work here.

• Style

  Once you realise that most moderators don't bother to read past the first paragraph or two, you can use this fact to craft trolls that can be moderated up as "Insightful" (note that I mean this in the /. sense rather than the real-world sense). Start off fairly reasonable, making statements that are /. friendly and not being too controversial. As the troll goes on, make it more and more controversial, building it up for the coup de grace in the final paragraph.

• Linking

  As we all know, a post with links is considered "informative" by the /. crowd. Moderators love it, and they rarely check the links, so be sure to include as many as possible. And make them wrong - a link to the Perl website should instead point to the Python website instead, and vice versa. The other alternative to incorrect links is "useful" links to places like www.linux.org and www.microsoft.com i.e. places /.ers could never have found on their own :)

• Feeding

  The ideal troll requires no feeding - it runs on its own, generating flamewars between clueless /.ers for your amusement. But often a troll requires some help and so you should consider feeding it. Feeding is best reserved for people making either completely clueless responses, people making responses with holes in, or those wonderful people who write a 2000-word point-by-point rebuttal of your troll.

• Know your audience

  Always keep in mind the kind of things advocated on /. so that you can play on and against them. This is why anti-Linux, creationist, gun-loving, pro-corporation trolls work well - the vast majority of /.ers hold the opposite viewpoints. And if a few people agree with you, so much the better - it merely validates your viewpoint in the eyes of readers.

• Arrogance

  Be arrogant. You, as a troll, know that you're right. No other explanation could exist. The wronger the "fact", the more assertively you should state it. Make it clear that you are better than everyone else - you know the truth and they are just too stupid to realise it. Use plenty of sarcasm, and use "quotes" to show it to people too dumb to realise.

• Offensiveness

  Being offensive in your initial troll can be counter-productive - it causes moderators to mark you down as flamebait in general. But if you're feeding, then you can get away with calling /.ers all kinds of things. Make broad generalisations about /. readers - call them "long-haired Linux zealots", "socialist open-source bigots" or whatever. Stereotyping is encouraged - people always want to think that they're an individual, and will point this out to you given half a chance.

• Indifference

  Great for articles with a political or social bent, this kind of troll expresses complete indifference to the topic at hand, wondering who on Earth cares about it. An alternative method is to say that the topic only concerns a certain group of people - criminals, idiots, hackers (always use this instead of crackers) or whatever group you want to offend.

• Sympathy

  Appear to take the same stance as the people you're trying to troll - claim you're as much a fan of Linux as the next man, but... This way you can make all kinds of claims in the sure knowledge that you actually know what you're talking about. A great phrase to use here is "In my experience". Remember to act like all the things you're pointing out are unfortunate but true.

• The common touch

  Always accuse /.ers of being elitist. This is an easy thing to do seeing as a lot of them are. Claim that is their grandmother couldn't use it, then they are just into it to feel better than Joe Sixpack rather than "doing it for the average user". This is always great for working into anti-Linux trolls - attack command-line tools and poorly designed desktops.

• The 31337 touch

  The opposite of the above. Claim that technology or whatever is only for the elite of society and that any attempt to open it up for everyone is wrong, an attack on intellectualism and possibly even dangerous. If people were meant to understand these things then they would, and it's their fault if they're too stupid to learn.

• Contradiction

  Never be afraid to contradict yourself, even in the space of a single sentence. The phrases "I am a top programmer who codes in VB" or "I am a supporter of open source who uses NT at work and 95 at home" will be sure to get a response from some weenie smugly pointing out the contradiction. Confuse the issue more by engaging in contradiction when you are feeding - this will confuse /.ers who will then make even more stupid replies, leaving them even more wide open for response.

  Clues

  If you're feeling brave, give the reader clues that this is an obvious troll. The classic example here is dmg's stock phrase "I am often accused of trolling (whatever that is)", but also feel free to use phrases like "I have not read the article, and I don't know much about XYZ but I feel I must comment". If anyone responds to a troll with these kinds of clues in it, feel free to bask in the glow of knee-jerk /. responses.

• Denial

  If you're unlucky someone will accuse you of being a troll (surely not!) and try and ruin it for you. If you don't want it all to end there, then be sure to counter it by accusing them of being small-minded and petty, saying that it's easier for them to say it's a troll than to accept that people have different opinions. Be sure to say this in the subject line, especially if their subject was the infamous "YHBT. YHL. HAND."

• Claiming credit

  Given that /. has its community of regular trolls (hi guys!), it's only polite to publish your troll on one of the so-called "hidden" forums for all to see and admire. This way, you get to bask in the praise of other trolls, they get to contribute to your's if they want to, and you get an easy way to find the troll later on when you want to check on its progress :)

  As for when to post it, that's a matter of opinion really. You can either post it straight away or leave it will after people start biting. Remember that the troll forum is also frequented by non-trolls, and sometimes you may get a self-declared "troll-buster" try and expose you. But remember, /.ers always post before thinking, and often it doesn't matter at all.

  There is no real current forum at the moment thanks to various spammers hitting the sids, but try trolltalk, the original troll sid started by 80md and osm way back in the day. Generally all postings are done there as an AC, with your name at the end of the post. Include a link to the troll somewhere in the text, which ideally will be directly to the post and its replies - click on the #XX link in the thread to get there.

• Ending the troll

  Sometimes you just get bored with a troll, or people start posting genuinely thoughtful stuff in reply (it does happen). When this happens it might be time to own up to the troll with a helpful "YHBT. YHL. HAND." post. Sometimes people will carry on a discussion of the issue, and if you're really lucky (and it was a great troll) they will completely fail to believe you and carry on arguing. If that happens, pat yourself on the back for writing a great troll :)

• The cheap $3 crack

  Finally, when all else fails and your troll gets moderated down to (-1, Troll) within ten seconds of you posting it, the only honourable thing to do is to accuse the moderators of smoking the cheap $3 crack (again) and give up :(

1. The Maniac

   Probably the most popular kind of troll, the Maniac holds an opinion on something, and won't budge from that opinion no matter what evidence to the contrary is presented. If challenged, the Maniac will simply get more and more agitated and abusive, deriding his opponents as "idiots", "wrong-thinking", "dangerous" and "subversive". Generally the Maniac takes a position that opposes the prevalent /. beliefs, but a similar effect can be achieved by taking a typical /. viewpoint and pushing it to ridiculous extremes.

   Maniacs can be crafted for practically every article /. posts, although some are more obvious targets than others. Civil liberty articles, especially on things like censorship, DMCA, UCITA that really get /.ers riled up, are usually extremely fruitful grounds for a well-crafted maniac. The other obvious type of article is anything which could possibly involve religion, especially evolution :)

   Here are some fruitful avenues to explore:

   • The Right-Wing Maniac

     Always popular, the right-wing maniac (RWM) is a God-fearing, gun-toting, flag-waving American, and proud of it. They don't care about the rest of the world, unless it's to "prove" that America is better than everything else, and they cannot stand liberal whining over civil rights. They hate the moral decay of America and want it to revert into a nation of heterosexual, Christian whites like it was meant to be. Woe betide anyone that dares to suggest otherwise.

   • Religion

     There are two ways to approach this kind of maniac. The harder to pull off is the militant atheist, but this is quite common amongst /. posters and you would have to be very offensive to get this to work. Of course with religion trolls, the argument can go on for ever once it's started... The more common approach is the Christian fundamentalist. They are ignorant, intolerant and bigoted in the extreme. For them the Bible is the inerrant word of God revealed to man - it contains no flaws and no contradictions. Thus they are strict Creationists - mentions of evolution or cosmology will set them off on vitriolic rants. Flaming denunciations of anyone daring to contradict the "Word of God" are the way to go, and any kind of proof can always be ignored by appealing to "secular humanist brainwashing". And let's not forget, the USA is the greatest nation on Earth because it has the righteous power of Jesus Christ behind it.

   • Ideology

     Pick a philosophy, any philosophy. This troll is a troll with a cause - they have found some kind of ideological truth, and are out to expose every other philosophy as a sham. Whether it be libertarianism, objectivism, communism or capitalism, this troll will point out the obvious "flaws" in any other philosophies, whilst spouting dogma about their own. And the best thing is - you don't even need to know that much about what you're spouting - making doctrinaire mistakes will get both sides of the argument flaming you, adding to the fun.

   • Software

     This is an old favourite and crops up in many forms, covering the gamut from OS maniacs (Linux zealots, MS-apologists or embittered BSD fanatics), language maniacs (Pascal vs. C, C vs. C++, C++ vs. Java, Perl vs. Python, VB vs. everything), application maniacs(GIMP vs. Photoshop, Netscape vs. IE, vi vs. emacs) and also includes people who complain about how technology should only be for the 31337 hackers.

   • Guns

     Americans love their guns, and will always fight passionately for their Constitutionally guarenteed rights to bear arms and shoot people. Even the slightest hint of criticism of this will bring down the wrath of a thousand and one enraged gun-owners on you, so it's always a great point to work into a troll :)

2. The Expert

   The Expert is someone who is "savvy" in their particular field, and is perfectly willing to give their opinion on any topic even vauguely related to their field. The Expert is most likely to be from a field which /.ers as a rule despise - the classic example is dumb marketing guy, but try consultants, lawyers, politicians, lobbyists, executives, journalists (just think Jon Katz). With this kind of troll sweeping statements with little content are the norm, along wire dire portents of future catastrophe and dark hints of "insider knowledge".

   Some possible angles to exploit:

   • Industry knowledge

     The expert knows the computing industry from the inside - as a long-term pro, they can dispense knowledge knowing that they can "speak for the industry". Their smug self-satisfaction is bound to annoy, as is any suggestion that things aren't the way that /.ers would like it - saying "Linux requires the rock-solid guarantee of a trusted company like Microsoft" or "Apache cannot be trusted for mission-critical enterprise platforms" is guaranteed to get you denials explaining exactly why you're wrong, in excruciating detail.

   • Helpful hints

     With their tech-savvy (or law-savvy or whatever) experience, the expert is obviously the best person to point out what's wrong with things or to give out useful "factual" information. In fact this probably works best with lawyer trolls - for all that /.ers protest "IANAL", they certainly seem to think they could be, and any mistakes you make will send them rushing to prove themselves by correcting you.

3. Offtopic Trolls

   Not really a "troll" in the strict Jargon File sense of the word, but they certainly should be included here :) This category includes parodies, offtopic weirdness any all kinds of amusing stuff. Not really my area of expertise, this stuff is mainly done by gnarphlager and opensourceman. Thanks to gnarphlager for this section.

   Offtopic trolls, like any other, come in almost as many colours as an iMac, but generally not as cute. But then again, a good offtopic "troll" can affect more people than a repulsive little gumdrop on your desk, because you need to have someone SEE your desk before they can react. Simple? Moreso than even my overblown prose could indicate. Some basic examples:

   1. The serial troll

      Write a story. Keep expanding it. It doesn't matter what article you post it under, so long as it's high up. If you want people to recognize you, pick a couple themes or symbols, and carry them on throughout the story. Other alternatives include back linking or including the entire story, but adding more each time. Be funny if you want. Or if you don't feel like being funny, just be really weird. Someone will react.

   2. The random troll

      This has nothing to do with anything. Be it a stream of consciousness rant, or a description of the corner of your desk. Another favorite is a monologue, read as if spoken from any one given entity to another. The more outlandish, the better (a pair of socks talking to a mousepad, for example). If you really wanted to be artsy, work in an actual metaphor or legitimate meaning behind it, but it's not necessary.

   3. The vaguely related troll

      Start out with a comment about the article. Have a definite opinion of it. Then, after a little while, disintegrate into randomness. All roads eventually can eventually lead to cheese (yum), Natalie Portman, cannibalism, toasters, squirrels, futons, you name it. All it takes is a little bit of creativity. Oh, and feel free to use other trolls' motifs. Open source and all that ;-)

   General tips:

   • If it's funny for a fleeting moment, then it's worth posting.
   • Puns. Puns are only less vile than mimes, but it's hard to mime on /. So feel free/obligated to litter your offtopic and random bits with puns. Hurt the bastards. And if they're sick enough to laugh at them, then they'll eventually end up here ;-)
   • Obscure cultural references and injokes are always good. SOMEONE will get them eventually.
   • Several drafts of a serial or random post are common, but true elegance is being able to come up with something on the spot that still makes the top 40 posts (on a post-heavy article)

The following links contain background information useful for trolls needing quick quotes and "expert" opinions to include.

1. General purpose links
   • ddi.digital.net/~gandalf/trollfaq.html - How to deal with USENET trolls - learn your enemy :)
   • www.don-lindsay-archive.org/skeptic/arguments.html - A List Of Fallacious Arguments - Learn them and use them liberally
   • www.altairiv.demon.co.uk/troll/trollfaq.html - USENET troll HOWTO
   • www.baiting.org - Baiting.org
   • www.fieldingtravel.com/df/index.htm - Fielding's DangerFinder - A guide to what and where's dangerous
   
   
2. Religious links
   • www.godhatesamerica.com/ - God Hates America
   • www.chalcedon.edu/creed.html - The Creed of Christian Reconstruction
   • www.demonbuster.com - How to cast out your demons and do spiritual warfare
   • riceinfo.rice.edu/armadillo/Sciacademy/riggins/thi ngs.htm - Things Creationists hate
   • www.icr.org/ - Institute for Creation Research
   • www.xenu.net - Operation Clambake - The fight against Scientology on the net
   • www.hom.net/~angels/ - Citizens for the Ten Commandments
   • www.bju.edu/rcnbc.html - The difference between Catholics and Christians
   • www.geocities.com/prazske00/biblequotes.html - Bible quotes by category
   
   
3. Political/economy links
   • www.aynrand.org - The Ayn Rand Institute
   • www.reason.com - Libertarian site
   • www.freerepublic.com - Right-wing stuff
   • www.jbs.org - Excellent site for all kinds of right-wingery
   • www.dack.com/web/bullshit.html - Web economy bullshit generator
   
   
4. Crackpot science links
   • www.fixedearth.com - The Earth Is Not Moving
   • www.jir.com/index.htm - The Journal of Irreproducible Results

© spiralx, I did not write this ;)

This is version 0.6 of a troll HOWTO, sort of a companion piece to jsm's excellent troll FAQ. As a draft, comments and criticism are always welcome, if not appreciated :)

There are techniques used by successful trolls to elicit the maximum amount of responses from unthinking /.ers. This section is dedicated to explaining how to use these in the course of your trolls. Remember though, a great troll can break any or all of these and still be successful...

• Timing

  Because you're posting as an AC, your troll will generally be ignored in favour of posters using their accounts, and so getting in early is essential. A good guideline is to get into the first 20 posts, so that people reading the article will see the troll before it is swamped out. One way of increasing the speed with which you get your troll into play is to prepare them beforehand, and then quickly customise them for the current article. This is easier than it sounds since /. typically repeats stories with small variations and runs lots of similar stories.

  Note that this is why Jon Katz stories are pretty worthless as trolling material - by the time you've found the article and prepared a troll there's already 50+ posts on it, most of them flaming Jon Katz anyway :)

• Exposure

  Once you've got your troll in, you need people to actually read it. You also want replies - /.ers are more likely to read your troll if it starts a large thread. You also want to remember that some people have set their comment thresholds to values higher than 0 - to get the attention of these you either want to get your post moderated up (see Style, below) or get a reply which gets moderated up to 4 or 5, in which case your troll becomes visible to all.

• Accounts

  An alternative to the time-honoured tradition of AC trolling is that of creating a "troll" account. This gives you the advantage of posting at 1 rather than 0, and slashbots are more likely to take you seriously, especially if you at least sound reasonable. If you do this, try to avoid posting stuff where it is obvious you're a troll under the account - post it anoymously instead - some slightly more canny readers actually check your user info before they reply. Not many though :)

  The ultimate goal of the troll account is to secure the +1 bonus, which is currently received once you hit 26 points of Karma. To get there, employ the techniques of karma whoring that we see every day on /. and watch the karma roll in. And of course once you get the +1 bonus, the world is your oyster in terms of /. Posts made at a default of 2 hit even those people with the threshold of 2, are more likely to get moderated up even further if they are at all coherent, and people tend to lose their critical thinking abilities in the face of the +1 bonus. Milk it for all it's worth.

• Layout

  To get people reading it a troll needs to be easily readable. Make sure you break it down into easily digestible paragraphs, use HTML tags where appropriate (but always make sure you close them properly) and use whitespace appropriately.

• Size

  Generally a troll shouldn't be too short, otherwise it'll get lost in the crowd. A workable minimum is a couple of medium paragraphs. Conversely, it shouldn't be too long, or no-one will bother to read it. Keep it to a happy medium.

• Spelling

  Whilst spelling is important if you want the troll to be taken "seriously", key spelling mistakes can draw out the spelling zealots, especially if you mis-spell the name of a venerated /. hero, like Linus Torveldes or Richard Strawlman (thanks dmg). Related to this is the use of the wrong word, explaining an acronym as being something it isn't or making a word into an acronym even when it isn't.

• Subject

  The subject line needs to draw attention to your post without making it obvious that it is a troll. A simple statement of the main point of your argument can work here.

• Style

  Once you realise that most moderators don't bother to read past the first paragraph or two, you can use this fact to craft trolls that can be moderated up as "Insightful" (note that I mean this in the /. sense rather than the real-world sense). Start off fairly reasonable, making statements that are /. friendly and not being too controversial. As the troll goes on, make it more and more controversial, building it up for the coup de grace in the final paragraph.

• Linking

  As we all know, a post with links is considered "informative" by the /. crowd. Moderators love it, and they rarely check the links, so be sure to include as many as possible. And make them wrong - a link to the Perl website should instead point to the Python website instead, and vice versa. The other alternative to incorrect links is "useful" links to places like www.linux.org and www.microsoft.com i.e. places /.ers could never have found on their own :)

• Feeding

  The ideal troll requires no feeding - it runs on its own, generating flamewars between clueless /.ers for your amusement. But often a troll requires some help and so you should consider feeding it. Feeding is best reserved for people making either completely clueless responses, people making responses with holes in, or those wonderful people who write a 2000-word point-by-point rebuttal of your troll.

• Know your audience

  Always keep in mind the kind of things advocated on /. so that you can play on and against them. This is why anti-Linux, creationist, gun-loving, pro-corporation trolls work well - the vast majority of /.ers hold the opposite viewpoints. And if a few people agree with you, so much the better - it merely validates your viewpoint in the eyes of readers.

• Arrogance

  Be arrogant. You, as a troll, know that you're right. No other explanation could exist. The wronger the "fact", the more assertively you should state it. Make it clear that you are better than everyone else - you know the truth and they are just too stupid to realise it. Use plenty of sarcasm, and use "quotes" to show it to people too dumb to realise.

• Offensiveness

  Being offensive in your initial troll can be counter-productive - it causes moderators to mark you down as flamebait in general. But if you're feeding, then you can get away with calling /.ers all kinds of things. Make broad generalisations about /. readers - call them "long-haired Linux zealots", "socialist open-source bigots" or whatever. Stereotyping is encouraged - people always want to think that they're an individual, and will point this out to you given half a chance.

• Indifference

  Great for articles with a political or social bent, this kind of troll expresses complete indifference to the topic at hand, wondering who on Earth cares about it. An alternative method is to say that the topic only concerns a certain group of people - criminals, idiots, hackers (always use this instead of crackers) or whatever group you want to offend.

• Sympathy

  Appear to take the same stance as the people you're trying to troll - claim you're as much a fan of Linux as the next man, but... This way you can make all kinds of claims in the sure knowledge that you actually know what you're talking about. A great phrase to use here is "In my experience". Remember to act like all the things you're pointing out are unfortunate but true.

• The common touch

  Always accuse /.ers of being elitist. This is an easy thing to do seeing as a lot of them are. Claim that is their grandmother couldn't use it, then they are just into it to feel better than Joe Sixpack rather than "doing it for the average user". This is always great for working into anti-Linux trolls - attack command-line tools and poorly designed desktops.

• The 31337 touch

  The opposite of the above. Claim that technology or whatever is only for the elite of society and that any attempt to open it up for everyone is wrong, an attack on intellectualism and possibly even dangerous. If people were meant to understand these things then they would, and it's their fault if they're too stupid to learn.

• Contradiction

  Never be afraid to contradict yourself, even in the space of a single sentence. The phrases "I am a top programmer who codes in VB" or "I am a supporter of open source who uses NT at work and 95 at home" will be sure to get a response from some weenie smugly pointing out the contradiction. Confuse the issue more by engaging in contradiction when you are feeding - this will confuse /.ers who will then make even more stupid replies, leaving them even more wide open for response.

  Clues

  If you're feeling brave, give the reader clues that this is an obvious troll. The classic example here is dmg's stock phrase "I am often accused of trolling (whatever that is)", but also feel free to use phrases like "I have not read the article, and I don't know much about XYZ but I feel I must comment". If anyone responds to a troll with these kinds of clues in it, feel free to bask in the glow of knee-jerk /. responses.

• Denial

  If you're unlucky someone will accuse you of being a troll (surely not!) and try and ruin it for you. If you don't want it all to end there, then be sure to counter it by accusing them of being small-minded and petty, saying that it's easier for them to say it's a troll than to accept that people have different opinions. Be sure to say this in the subject line, especially if their subject was the infamous "YHBT. YHL. HAND."

• Claiming credit

  Given that /. has its community of regular trolls (hi guys!), it's only polite to publish your troll on one of the so-called "hidden" forums for all to see and admire. This way, you get to bask in the praise of other trolls, they get to contribute to your's if they want to, and you get an easy way to find the troll later on when you want to check on its progress :)

  As for when to post it, that's a matter of opinion really. You can either post it straight away or leave it will after people start biting. Remember that the troll forum is also frequented by non-trolls, and sometimes you may get a self-declared "troll-buster" try and expose you. But remember, /.ers always post before thinking, and often it doesn't matter at all.

  There is no real current forum at the moment thanks to various spammers hitting the sids, but try trolltalk, the original troll sid started by 80md and osm way back in the day. Generally all postings are done there as an AC, with your name at the end of the post. Include a link to the troll somewhere in the text, which ideally will be directly to the post and its replies - click on the #XX link in the thread to get there.

• Ending the troll

  Sometimes you just get bored with a troll, or people start posting genuinely thoughtful stuff in reply (it does happen). When this happens it might be time to own up to the troll with a helpful "YHBT. YHL. HAND." post. Sometimes people will carry on a discussion of the issue, and if you're really lucky (and it was a great troll) they will completely fail to believe you and carry on arguing. If that happens, pat yourself on the back for writing a great troll :)

• The cheap $3 crack

  Finally, when all else fails and your troll gets moderated down to (-1, Troll) within ten seconds of you posting it, the only honourable thing to do is to accuse the moderators of smoking the cheap $3 crack (again) and give up :(

1. The Maniac

   Probably the most popular kind of troll, the Maniac holds an opinion on something, and won't budge from that opinion no matter what evidence to the contrary is presented. If challenged, the Maniac will simply get more and more agitated and abusive, deriding his opponents as "idiots", "wrong-thinking", "dangerous" and "subversive". Generally the Maniac takes a position that opposes the prevalent /. beliefs, but a similar effect can be achieved by taking a typical /. viewpoint and pushing it to ridiculous extremes.

   Maniacs can be crafted for practically every article /. posts, although some are more obvious targets than others. Civil liberty articles, especially on things like censorship, DMCA, UCITA that really get /.ers riled up, are usually extremely fruitful grounds for a well-crafted maniac. The other obvious type of article is anything which could possibly involve religion, especially evolution :)

   Here are some fruitful avenues to explore:

   • The Right-Wing Maniac

     Always popular, the right-wing maniac (RWM) is a God-fearing, gun-toting, flag-waving American, and proud of it. They don't care about the rest of the world, unless it's to "prove" that America is better than everything else, and they cannot stand liberal whining over civil rights. They hate the moral decay of America and want it to revert into a nation of heterosexual, Christian whites like it was meant to be. Woe betide anyone that dares to suggest otherwise.

   • Religion

     There are two ways to approach this kind of maniac. The harder to pull off is the militant atheist, but this is quite common amongst /. posters and you would have to be very offensive to get this to work. Of course with religion trolls, the argument can go on for ever once it's started... The more common approach is the Christian fundamentalist. They are ignorant, intolerant and bigoted in the extreme. For them the Bible is the inerrant word of God revealed to man - it contains no flaws and no contradictions. Thus they are strict Creationists - mentions of evolution or cosmology will set them off on vitriolic rants. Flaming denunciations of anyone daring to contradict the "Word of God" are the way to go, and any kind of proof can always be ignored by appealing to "secular humanist brainwashing". And let's not forget, the USA is the greatest nation on Earth because it has the righteous power of Jesus Christ behind it.

   • Ideology

     Pick a philosophy, any philosophy. This troll is a troll with a cause - they have found some kind of ideological truth, and are out to expose every other philosophy as a sham. Whether it be libertarianism, objectivism, communism or capitalism, this troll will point out the obvious "flaws" in any other philosophies, whilst spouting dogma about their own. And the best thing is - you don't even need to know that much about what you're spouting - making doctrinaire mistakes will get both sides of the argument flaming you, adding to the fun.

   • Software

     This is an old favourite and crops up in many forms, covering the gamut from OS maniacs (Linux zealots, MS-apologists or embittered BSD fanatics), language maniacs (Pascal vs. C, C vs. C++, C++ vs. Java, Perl vs. Python, VB vs. everything), application maniacs(GIMP vs. Photoshop, Netscape vs. IE, vi vs. emacs) and also includes people who complain about how technology should only be for the 31337 hackers.

   • Guns

     Americans love their guns, and will always fight passionately for their Constitutionally guarenteed rights to bear arms and shoot people. Even the slightest hint of criticism of this will bring down the wrath of a thousand and one enraged gun-owners on you, so it's always a great point to work into a troll :)

2. The Expert

   The Expert is someone who is "savvy" in their particular field, and is perfectly willing to give their opinion on any topic even vauguely related to their field. The Expert is most likely to be from a field which /.ers as a rule despise - the classic example is dumb marketing guy, but try consultants, lawyers, politicians, lobbyists, executives, journalists (just think Jon Katz). With this kind of troll sweeping statements with little content are the norm, along wire dire portents of future catastrophe and dark hints of "insider knowledge".

   Some possible angles to exploit:

   • Industry knowledge

     The expert knows the computing industry from the inside - as a long-term pro, they can dispense knowledge knowing that they can "speak for the industry". Their smug self-satisfaction is bound to annoy, as is any suggestion that things aren't the way that /.ers would like it - saying "Linux requires the rock-solid guarantee of a trusted company like Microsoft" or "Apache cannot be trusted for mission-critical enterprise platforms" is guaranteed to get you denials explaining exactly why you're wrong, in excruciating detail.

   • Helpful hints

     With their tech-savvy (or law-savvy or whatever) experience, the expert is obviously the best person to point out what's wrong with things or to give out useful "factual" information. In fact this probably works best with lawyer trolls - for all that /.ers protest "IANAL", they certainly seem to think they could be, and any mistakes you make will send them rushing to prove themselves by correcting you.

3. Offtopic Trolls

   Not really a "troll" in the strict Jargon File sense of the word, but they certainly should be included here :) This category includes parodies, offtopic weirdness any all kinds of amusing stuff. Not really my area of expertise, this stuff is mainly done by gnarphlager and opensourceman. Thanks to gnarphlager for this section.

   Offtopic trolls, like any other, come in almost as many colours as an iMac, but generally not as cute. But then again, a good offtopic "troll" can affect more people than a repulsive little gumdrop on your desk, because you need to have someone SEE your desk before they can react. Simple? Moreso than even my overblown prose could indicate. Some basic examples:

   1. The serial troll

      Write a story. Keep expanding it. It doesn't matter what article you post it under, so long as it's high up. If you want people to recognize you, pick a couple themes or symbols, and carry them on throughout the story. Other alternatives include back linking or including the entire story, but adding more each time. Be funny if you want. Or if you don't feel like being funny, just be really weird. Someone will react.

   2. The random troll

      This has nothing to do with anything. Be it a stream of consciousness rant, or a description of the corner of your desk. Another favorite is a monologue, read as if spoken from any one given entity to another. The more outlandish, the better (a pair of socks talking to a mousepad, for example). If you really wanted to be artsy, work in an actual metaphor or legitimate meaning behind it, but it's not necessary.

   3. The vaguely related troll

      Start out with a comment about the article. Have a definite opinion of it. Then, after a little while, disintegrate into randomness. All roads eventually can eventually lead to cheese (yum), Natalie Portman, cannibalism, toasters, squirrels, futons, you name it. All it takes is a little bit of creativity. Oh, and feel free to use other trolls' motifs. Open source and all that ;-)

   General tips:

   • If it's funny for a fleeting moment, then it's worth posting.
   • Puns. Puns are only less vile than mimes, but it's hard to mime on /. So feel free/obligated to litter your offtopic and random bits with puns. Hurt the bastards. And if they're sick enough to laugh at them, then they'll eventually end up here ;-)
   • Obscure cultural references and injokes are always good. SOMEONE will get them eventually.
   • Several drafts of a serial or random post are common, but true elegance is being able to come up with something on the spot that still makes the top 40 posts (on a post-heavy article)

The following links contain background information useful for trolls needing quick quotes and "expert" opinions to include.

1. General purpose links
   • ddi.digital.net/~gandalf/trollfaq.html - How to deal with USENET trolls - learn your enemy :)
   • www.don-lindsay-archive.org/skeptic/arguments.html - A List Of Fallacious Arguments - Learn them and use them liberally
   • www.altairiv.demon.co.uk/troll/trollfaq.html - USENET troll HOWTO
   • www.baiting.org - Baiting.org
   • www.fieldingtravel.com/df/index.htm - Fielding's DangerFinder - A guide to what and where's dangerous
   
   
2. Religious links
   • www.godhatesamerica.com/ - God Hates America
   • www.chalcedon.edu/creed.html - The Creed of Christian Reconstruction
   • www.demonbuster.com - How to cast out your demons and do spiritual warfare
   • riceinfo.rice.edu/armadillo/Sciacademy/riggins/thi ngs.htm - Things Creationists hate
   • www.icr.org/ - Institute for Creation Research
   • www.xenu.net - Operation Clambake - The fight against Scientology on the net
   • www.hom.net/~angels/ - Citizens for the Ten Commandments
   • www.bju.edu/rcnbc.html - The difference between Catholics and Christians
   • www.geocities.com/prazske00/biblequotes.html - Bible quotes by category
   
   
3. Political/economy links
   • www.aynrand.org - The Ayn Rand Institute
   • www.reason.com - Libertarian site
   • www.freerepublic.com - Right-wing stuff
   • www.jbs.org - Excellent site for all kinds of right-wingery
   • www.dack.com/web/bullshit.html - Web economy bullshit generator
   
   
4. Crackpot science links
   • www.fixedearth.com - The Earth Is Not Moving
   • www.jir.com/index.htm - The Journal of Irreproducible Results

© spiralx, I did not write this ;)

This is version 0.6 of a troll HOWTO, sort of a companion piece to jsm's excellent troll FAQ. As a draft, comments and criticism are always welcome, if not appreciated :)

There are techniques used by successful trolls to elicit the maximum amount of responses from unthinking /.ers. This section is dedicated to explaining how to use these in the course of your trolls. Remember though, a great troll can break any or all of these and still be successful...

• Timing

  Because you're posting as an AC, your troll will generally be ignored in favour of posters using their accounts, and so getting in early is essential. A good guideline is to get into the first 20 posts, so that people reading the article will see the troll before it is swamped out. One way of increasing the speed with which you get your troll into play is to prepare them beforehand, and then quickly customise them for the current article. This is easier than it sounds since /. typically repeats stories with small variations and runs lots of similar stories.

  Note that this is why Jon Katz stories are pretty worthless as trolling material - by the time you've found the article and prepared a troll there's already 50+ posts on it, most of them flaming Jon Katz anyway :)

• Exposure

  Once you've got your troll in, you need people to actually read it. You also want replies - /.ers are more likely to read your troll if it starts a large thread. You also want to remember that some people have set their comment thresholds to values higher than 0 - to get the attention of these you either want to get your post moderated up (see Style, below) or get a reply which gets moderated up to 4 or 5, in which case your troll becomes visible to all.

• Accounts

  An alternative to the time-honoured tradition of AC trolling is that of creating a "troll" account. This gives you the advantage of posting at 1 rather than 0, and slashbots are more likely to take you seriously, especially if you at least sound reasonable. If you do this, try to avoid posting stuff where it is obvious you're a troll under the account - post it anoymously instead - some slightly more canny readers actually check your user info before they reply. Not many though :)

  The ultimate goal of the troll account is to secure the +1 bonus, which is currently received once you hit 26 points of Karma. To get there, employ the techniques of karma whoring that we see every day on /. and watch the karma roll in. And of course once you get the +1 bonus, the world is your oyster in terms of /. Posts made at a default of 2 hit even those people with the threshold of 2, are more likely to get moderated up even further if they are at all coherent, and people tend to lose their critical thinking abilities in the face of the +1 bonus. Milk it for all it's worth.

• Layout

  To get people reading it a troll needs to be easily readable. Make sure you break it down into easily digestible paragraphs, use HTML tags where appropriate (but always make sure you close them properly) and use whitespace appropriately.

• Size

  Generally a troll shouldn't be too short, otherwise it'll get lost in the crowd. A workable minimum is a couple of medium paragraphs. Conversely, it shouldn't be too long, or no-one will bother to read it. Keep it to a happy medium.

• Spelling

  Whilst spelling is important if you want the troll to be taken "seriously", key spelling mistakes can draw out the spelling zealots, especially if you mis-spell the name of a venerated /. hero, like Linus Torveldes or Richard Strawlman (thanks dmg). Related to this is the use of the wrong word, explaining an acronym as being something it isn't or making a word into an acronym even when it isn't.

• Subject

  The subject line needs to draw attention to your post without making it obvious that it is a troll. A simple statement of the main point of your argument can work here.

• Style

  Once you realise that most moderators don't bother to read past the first paragraph or two, you can use this fact to craft trolls that can be moderated up as "Insightful" (note that I mean this in the /. sense rather than the real-world sense). Start off fairly reasonable, making statements that are /. friendly and not being too controversial. As the troll goes on, make it more and more controversial, building it up for the coup de grace in the final paragraph.

• Linking

  As we all know, a post with links is considered "informative" by the /. crowd. Moderators love it, and they rarely check the links, so be sure to include as many as possible. And make them wrong - a link to the Perl website should instead point to the Python website instead, and vice versa. The other alternative to incorrect links is "useful" links to places like www.linux.org and www.microsoft.com i.e. places /.ers could never have found on their own :)

• Feeding

  The ideal troll requires no feeding - it runs on its own, generating flamewars between clueless /.ers for your amusement. But often a troll requires some help and so you should consider feeding it. Feeding is best reserved for people making either completely clueless responses, people making responses with holes in, or those wonderful people who write a 2000-word point-by-point rebuttal of your troll.

• Know your audience

  Always keep in mind the kind of things advocated on /. so that you can play on and against them. This is why anti-Linux, creationist, gun-loving, pro-corporation trolls work well - the vast majority of /.ers hold the opposite viewpoints. And if a few people agree with you, so much the better - it merely validates your viewpoint in the eyes of readers.

• Arrogance

  Be arrogant. You, as a troll, know that you're right. No other explanation could exist. The wronger the "fact", the more assertively you should state it. Make it clear that you are better than everyone else - you know the truth and they are just too stupid to realise it. Use plenty of sarcasm, and use "quotes" to show it to people too dumb to realise.

• Offensiveness

  Being offensive in your initial troll can be counter-productive - it causes moderators to mark you down as flamebait in general. But if you're feeding, then you can get away with calling /.ers all kinds of things. Make broad generalisations about /. readers - call them "long-haired Linux zealots", "socialist open-source bigots" or whatever. Stereotyping is encouraged - people always want to think that they're an individual, and will point this out to you given half a chance.

• Indifference

  Great for articles with a political or social bent, this kind of troll expresses complete indifference to the topic at hand, wondering who on Earth cares about it. An alternative method is to say that the topic only concerns a certain group of people - criminals, idiots, hackers (always use this instead of crackers) or whatever group you want to offend.

• Sympathy

  Appear to take the same stance as the people you're trying to troll - claim you're as much a fan of Linux as the next man, but... This way you can make all kinds of claims in the sure knowledge that you actually know what you're talking about. A great phrase to use here is "In my experience". Remember to act like all the things you're pointing out are unfortunate but true.

• The common touch

  Always accuse /.ers of being elitist. This is an easy thing to do seeing as a lot of them are. Claim that is their grandmother couldn't use it, then they are just into it to feel better than Joe Sixpack rather than "doing it for the average user". This is always great for working into anti-Linux trolls - attack command-line tools and poorly designed desktops.

• The 31337 touch

  The opposite of the above. Claim that technology or whatever is only for the elite of society and that any attempt to open it up for everyone is wrong, an attack on intellectualism and possibly even dangerous. If people were meant to understand these things then they would, and it's their fault if they're too stupid to learn.

• Contradiction

  Never be afraid to contradict yourself, even in the space of a single sentence. The phrases "I am a top programmer who codes in VB" or "I am a supporter of open source who uses NT at work and 95 at home" will be sure to get a response from some weenie smugly pointing out the contradiction. Confuse the issue more by engaging in contradiction when you are feeding - this will confuse /.ers who will then make even more stupid replies, leaving them even more wide open for response.

  Clues

  If you're feeling brave, give the reader clues that this is an obvious troll. The classic example here is dmg's stock phrase "I am often accused of trolling (whatever that is)", but also feel free to use phrases like "I have not read the article, and I don't know much about XYZ but I feel I must comment". If anyone responds to a troll with these kinds of clues in it, feel free to bask in the glow of knee-jerk /. responses.

• Denial

  If you're unlucky someone will accuse you of being a troll (surely not!) and try and ruin it for you. If you don't want it all to end there, then be sure to counter it by accusing them of being small-minded and petty, saying that it's easier for them to say it's a troll than to accept that people have different opinions. Be sure to say this in the subject line, especially if their subject was the infamous "YHBT. YHL. HAND."

• Claiming credit

  Given that /. has its community of regular trolls (hi guys!), it's only polite to publish your troll on one of the so-called "hidden" forums for all to see and admire. This way, you get to bask in the praise of other trolls, they get to contribute to your's if they want to, and you get an easy way to find the troll later on when you want to check on its progress :)

  As for when to post it, that's a matter of opinion really. You can either post it straight away or leave it will after people start biting. Remember that the troll forum is also frequented by non-trolls, and sometimes you may get a self-declared "troll-buster" try and expose you. But remember, /.ers always post before thinking, and often it doesn't matter at all.

  There is no real current forum at the moment thanks to various spammers hitting the sids, but try trolltalk, the original troll sid started by 80md and osm way back in the day. Generally all postings are done there as an AC, with your name at the end of the post. Include a link to the troll somewhere in the text, which ideally will be directly to the post and its replies - click on the #XX link in the thread to get there.

• Ending the troll

  Sometimes you just get bored with a troll, or people start posting genuinely thoughtful stuff in reply (it does happen). When this happens it might be time to own up to the troll with a helpful "YHBT. YHL. HAND." post. Sometimes people will carry on a discussion of the issue, and if you're really lucky (and it was a great troll) they will completely fail to believe you and carry on arguing. If that happens, pat yourself on the back for writing a great troll :)

• The cheap $3 crack

  Finally, when all else fails and your troll gets moderated down to (-1, Troll) within ten seconds of you posting it, the only honourable thing to do is to accuse the moderators of smoking the cheap $3 crack (again) and give up :(

1. The Maniac

   Probably the most popular kind of troll, the Maniac holds an opinion on something, and won't budge from that opinion no matter what evidence to the contrary is presented. If challenged, the Maniac will simply get more and more agitated and abusive, deriding his opponents as "idiots", "wrong-thinking", "dangerous" and "subversive". Generally the Maniac takes a position that opposes the prevalent /. beliefs, but a similar effect can be achieved by taking a typical /. viewpoint and pushing it to ridiculous extremes.

   Maniacs can be crafted for practically every article /. posts, although some are more obvious targets than others. Civil liberty articles, especially on things like censorship, DMCA, UCITA that really get /.ers riled up, are usually extremely fruitful grounds for a well-crafted maniac. The other obvious type of article is anything which could possibly involve religion, especially evolution :)

   Here are some fruitful avenues to explore:

   • The Right-Wing Maniac

     Always popular, the right-wing maniac (RWM) is a God-fearing, gun-toting, flag-waving American, and proud of it. They don't care about the rest of the world, unless it's to "prove" that America is better than everything else, and they cannot stand liberal whining over civil rights. They hate the moral decay of America and want it to revert into a nation of heterosexual, Christian whites like it was meant to be. Woe betide anyone that dares to suggest otherwise.

   • Religion

     There are two ways to approach this kind of maniac. The harder to pull off is the militant atheist, but this is quite common amongst /. posters and you would have to be very offensive to get this to work. Of course with religion trolls, the argument can go on for ever once it's started... The more common approach is the Christian fundamentalist. They are ignorant, intolerant and bigoted in the extreme. For them the Bible is the inerrant word of God revealed to man - it contains no flaws and no contradictions. Thus they are strict Creationists - mentions of evolution or cosmology will set them off on vitriolic rants. Flaming denunciations of anyone daring to contradict the "Word of God" are the way to go, and any kind of proof can always be ignored by appealing to "secular humanist brainwashing". And let's not forget, the USA is the greatest nation on Earth because it has the righteous power of Jesus Christ behind it.

   • Ideology

     Pick a philosophy, any philosophy. This troll is a troll with a cause - they have found some kind of ideological truth, and are out to expose every other philosophy as a sham. Whether it be libertarianism, objectivism, communism or capitalism, this troll will point out the obvious "flaws" in any other philosophies, whilst spouting dogma about their own. And the best thing is - you don't even need to know that much about what you're spouting - making doctrinaire mistakes will get both sides of the argument flaming you, adding to the fun.

   • Software

     This is an old favourite and crops up in many forms, covering the gamut from OS maniacs (Linux zealots, MS-apologists or embittered BSD fanatics), language maniacs (Pascal vs. C, C vs. C++, C++ vs. Java, Perl vs. Python, VB vs. everything), application maniacs(GIMP vs. Photoshop, Netscape vs. IE, vi vs. emacs) and also includes people who complain about how technology should only be for the 31337 hackers.

   • Guns

     Americans love their guns, and will always fight passionately for their Constitutionally guarenteed rights to bear arms and shoot people. Even the slightest hint of criticism of this will bring down the wrath of a thousand and one enraged gun-owners on you, so it's always a great point to work into a troll :)

2. The Expert

   The Expert is someone who is "savvy" in their particular field, and is perfectly willing to give their opinion on any topic even vauguely related to their field. The Expert is most likely to be from a field which /.ers as a rule despise - the classic example is dumb marketing guy, but try consultants, lawyers, politicians, lobbyists, executives, journalists (just think Jon Katz). With this kind of troll sweeping statements with little content are the norm, along wire dire portents of future catastrophe and dark hints of "insider knowledge".

   Some possible angles to exploit:

   • Industry knowledge

     The expert knows the computing industry from the inside - as a long-term pro, they can dispense knowledge knowing that they can "speak for the industry". Their smug self-satisfaction is bound to annoy, as is any suggestion that things aren't the way that /.ers would like it - saying "Linux requires the rock-solid guarantee of a trusted company like Microsoft" or "Apache cannot be trusted for mission-critical enterprise platforms" is guaranteed to get you denials explaining exactly why you're wrong, in excruciating detail.

   • Helpful hints

     With their tech-savvy (or law-savvy or whatever) experience, the expert is obviously the best person to point out what's wrong with things or to give out useful "factual" information. In fact this probably works best with lawyer trolls - for all that /.ers protest "IANAL", they certainly seem to think they could be, and any mistakes you make will send them rushing to prove themselves by correcting you.

3. Offtopic Trolls

   Not really a "troll" in the strict Jargon File sense of the word, but they certainly should be included here :) This category includes parodies, offtopic weirdness any all kinds of amusing stuff. Not really my area of expertise, this stuff is mainly done by gnarphlager and opensourceman. Thanks to gnarphlager for this section.

   Offtopic trolls, like any other, come in almost as many colours as an iMac, but generally not as cute. But then again, a good offtopic "troll" can affect more people than a repulsive little gumdrop on your desk, because you need to have someone SEE your desk before they can react. Simple? Moreso than even my overblown prose could indicate. Some basic examples:

   1. The serial troll

      Write a story. Keep expanding it. It doesn't matter what article you post it under, so long as it's high up. If you want people to recognize you, pick a couple themes or symbols, and carry them on throughout the story. Other alternatives include back linking or including the entire story, but adding more each time. Be funny if you want. Or if you don't feel like being funny, just be really weird. Someone will react.

   2. The random troll

      This has nothing to do with anything. Be it a stream of consciousness rant, or a description of the corner of your desk. Another favorite is a monologue, read as if spoken from any one given entity to another. The more outlandish, the better (a pair of socks talking to a mousepad, for example). If you really wanted to be artsy, work in an actual metaphor or legitimate meaning behind it, but it's not necessary.

   3. The vaguely related troll

      Start out with a comment about the article. Have a definite opinion of it. Then, after a little while, disintegrate into randomness. All roads eventually can eventually lead to cheese (yum), Natalie Portman, cannibalism, toasters, squirrels, futons, you name it. All it takes is a little bit of creativity. Oh, and feel free to use other trolls' motifs. Open source and all that ;-)

   General tips:

   • If it's funny for a fleeting moment, then it's worth posting.
   • Puns. Puns are only less vile than mimes, but it's hard to mime on /. So feel free/obligated to litter your offtopic and random bits with puns. Hurt the bastards. And if they're sick enough to laugh at them, then they'll eventually end up here ;-)
   • Obscure cultural references and injokes are always good. SOMEONE will get them eventually.
   • Several drafts of a serial or random post are common, but true elegance is being able to come up with something on the spot that still makes the top 40 posts (on a post-heavy article)

The following links contain background information useful for trolls needing quick quotes and "expert" opinions to include.

1. General purpose links
   • ddi.digital.net/~gandalf/trollfaq.html - How to deal with USENET trolls - learn your enemy :)
   • www.don-lindsay-archive.org/skeptic/arguments.html - A List Of Fallacious Arguments - Learn them and use them liberally
   • www.altairiv.demon.co.uk/troll/trollfaq.html - USENET troll HOWTO
   • www.baiting.org - Baiting.org
   • www.fieldingtravel.com/df/index.htm - Fielding's DangerFinder - A guide to what and where's dangerous
   
   
2. Religious links
   • www.godhatesamerica.com/ - God Hates America
   • www.chalcedon.edu/creed.html - The Creed of Christian Reconstruction
   • www.demonbuster.com - How to cast out your demons and do spiritual warfare
   • riceinfo.rice.edu/armadillo/Sciacademy/riggins/thi ngs.htm - Things Creationists hate
   • www.icr.org/ - Institute for Creation Research
   • www.xenu.net - Operation Clambake - The fight against Scientology on the net
   • www.hom.net/~angels/ - Citizens for the Ten Commandments
   • www.bju.edu/rcnbc.html - The difference between Catholics and Christians
   • www.geocities.com/prazske00/biblequotes.html - Bible quotes by category
   
   
3. Political/economy links
   • www.aynrand.org - The Ayn Rand Institute
   • www.reason.com - Libertarian site
   • www.freerepublic.com - Right-wing stuff
   • www.jbs.org - Excellent site for all kinds of right-wingery
   • www.dack.com/web/bullshit.html - Web economy bullshit generator
   
   
4. Crackpot science links
   • www.fixedearth.com - The Earth Is Not Moving
   • www.jir.com/index.htm - The Journal of Irreproducible Results

© spiralx, I did not write this ;)

Hell, we gave one BILLION dollars in money and weapons to the organization Osama Bin Ladin was a part of when we were trying to get the soviets out of Afghanistan. It is time the US did not involve itself in wars we don't belong in. Thanks to the aid money we are now going to be fighting members of the Taliban that are using US made weapons that we gave them over 10 years ago!

In the year PRIOR to September 11th, 2001 we GAVE the TALIBAN over $125,000,000 [lp.org] in foreign aid! If we want to fight terrorism the first thing we should do is stop giving money to the terrorists

As for retalliation at this point I would say we are fully justified in destroying Osama Bin Ladin and his organization as well as the Taliban which harbors him. I think appropriate action after justice is served would be to cease all foreign aid (which accounts for almost 1 TRILLION dollars spent by our government since the end of world war II). We should also withdraw our troops from the one hundred countries we now occupy and stay out of other people's affairs. And of course, never allow a terrorist attack on America from now on go unanswered.

Most people don't realize that Terrorism goes much further than the past 8 years of the Clinton administration. The truth is there have been warning signs for years about terrorists and our lack of dealing with them. Here is an article [aynrand.org] that appeared in a full page ad in the New York Times. Please take it with a grain of salt. Personally I don't agree with their conclusions and think they are war mongerers, but the information about how long the US has appeased terrorists for their destruction of American lives and property is unbelieveable!

Hell, we gave one BILLION dollars in money and weapons to the organization Osama Bin Ladin was a part of when we were trying to get the soviets out of Afghanistan. It is time the US did not involve itself in wars we don't belong in. Thanks to the aid money we are now going to be fighting members of the Taliban that are using US made weapons that we gave them over 10 years ago!

In the year PRIOR to September 11th, 2001 we GAVE the TALIBAN over $125,000,000 in foreign aid! If we want to fight terrorism the first thing we should do is stop giving money to the terrorists

As for retalliation at this point I would say we are fully justified in destroying Osama Bin Ladin and his organization as well as the Taliban which harbors him. I think appropriate action after justice is served would be to cease all foreign aid (which accounts for almost 1 TRILLION dollars spent by our government since the end of world war II). We should also withdraw our troops from the one hundred countries we now occupy and stay out of other people's affairs. And of course, never allow a terrorist attack on America from now on go unanswered.

Most people don't realize that Terrorism goes much further than the past 8 years of the Clinton administration. The truth is there have been warning signs for years about terrorists and our lack of dealing with them. Here is an article that appeared in a full page ad in the New York Times. Please take it with a grain of salt. Personally I don't agree with their conclusions and think they are war mongerers, but the information about how long the US has appeased terrorists for their destruction of American lives and property is unbelieveable!

here is a link (realaudio) to an interesting interview regarding the recent attacks and putting it into perspective in regards to the US's constant appeasement of terrorists.

Is no one talking about taking away all patent priviliges? What else is implied when a government threatens to take a patent away? When you appease a government of thugs you are opening the door for lots of problems.
this site.

Melodrama? How about realistic. Are you telling me that it's okay to bully a company as long as the whole industry doesn't come to a hault. Or if certain patents are upheld as long as a government agrees with the prices being charged is that justice? Remember, without these pharmaceutical companies, these people would have no hope whatsoever. You talk about reducing the "priviliges" of these companies to sell at a price that the market will pay. I didn't realize it was a privilege to create a product and offer it for sale to others. I suppose these patients have a "right" to the hard work of these companies. What about the right of these companies and their investors/owners?

Say one candidate has most of the general skills needed, obviously takes pride in his work, has ambitions and are very enthusiastic about the position, whereas the other is an expert on all relevant topics, has longer relevant working experience, are a bit laid back and has no long-term professional goals.

I'd hire the ambitious applicant any day.

Working is thinking followed by action. If you have extensive knowledge on some topic, you need to do less thinking to do tasks related to that topic. You still have to think, to some degree. The ambitious person, eager to solve the problem, do a good job and get a raise, will enthusiastically push his mental throttle all the way. The expert run dry will give up or postpone the issues as long as possible.

Knowledge is simply the result of having thought about something. A person that knows a lot has a good track record with regards to thinking. But the fact that you were taking good care of your mind five years ago doesn't mean you do today. That's why personal qualities, and especially ambition, is an important element when judging how good a job a candidate will do.

"I swear by my Life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for the sake of mine." John Galt in Ayn Rands "Atlas Shrugged".

Ayn Rand pretty much decimated this argument over 50 years ago. Give "Atlas Shrugged" a read sometime. For some more contemporary writings on eminent domain, try this opinion piece from the Ayn Rand Institute.
A synopsis: No one, man or government, has the right to another man's work or property. It doesn't matter how much you "need" it. And don't even think for a second that you can make the argument that the overriding social good demands that Metallica give over control of it's work to "society". Give me a break!

Ayn Rand pretty much decimated this argument over 50 years ago. Give "Atlas Shrugged" a read sometime. For some more contemporary writings on eminent domain, try this opinion piece from the Ayn Rand Institute.
A synopsis: No one, man or government, has the right to another man's work or property. It doesn't matter how much you "need" it. And don't even think for a second that you can make the argument that the overriding social good demands that Metallica give over control of it's work to "society". Give me a break!

I definitely agree, Jon Katz isn't presenting the full story and his logic is fuzzy.

Katz says the U.S. is becoming one of the most resented countries in the world. Hello Katz! The U.S. has ALWAYS been one of the most resented countries because of its prosperity. The rest of the world loves to belittle the U.S. for any reason it can come up with because of its prosperity.

Next Katz talks about surveys:

67% of Americans surveyed believed that increased carbon dioxide and other gases released into the atmosphere would, if unchecked, lead to global warming and increasing average temperatures.

Since when does the general public have the scientific knowhow to analyze factors and trends in the Earth's chemical content? They think that because its what they are TOLD by the liberal media not because they have made a scientific analysis of the situation.

Katz goes on to say that this issue is going to capture large amounts of attention and that our nation's president is definitely on the unpopular side. Katz, the environmentalist left has been preaching this for decades. The truth is that global warming is NOT based on fact it is based on scare tactics. If the rest of the world jumped off a bridge would the U.S jump too? I'm proud that our president has stood up for his belief that environmentalism, when carried to the extreme, is very unhealthy for everybody. If you believe that global warming is truly a threat, do your homework and research the topic instead of blindly trusting liberal rhetoric. You'll find that global warming is actually at odds with science and is just another political tool.

The Tick : Spooooooooooooooooooooon!.

Microsoft = Communism!

That's right, the world's largest software company is little more than a Maoist personality cult bent on world domination! Just look at the facts:

• Microsoft's .NET architecture is moving power away from independent PCs and towards centralized servers. .NET is collectivization for the 21st century!
• Microsoft software controls 95% of the world's personal computers. Windows is the software equivalent of a single-party political system!
• Microsoft ruthlessly squashes all opposition by giving away for free services you would otherwise have to pay for - a classic Communist tactic!
• Chairman Bill wears little round glasses! See any resemblance?
• Chairman Bill donates millions to charity. That's the kind of 'redistribution of wealth' our great country was founded to oppose!

First, you're 100% right-on to advise people to make a plan and then build their own companies with other competent people. Many who attempt to do this will of course fail, many others will cave into temptation and turn into PHBs themselves, and a few will stay true to their principles and actually make it work. In my opinion (and I'm a practitioner), it's well worth the risk and experience to attempt it.

However, as for your "guaranteed cure for unemployment" (the link you gave was: www.aynrand.org)... YEEEESH! Well, as powerful as her philosophy is, she's also a guaranteed cure for an erection! Yikes. They really need to change the welcome image!

Bravo!!!

I played that game for the past couple of years - being a PHB-enabler. Things like:

- working 80+ hrs/week (no weekend free-time either) to restructure the god-awful business plan written by clowns so the PHBs could get that critical $50 mil to keep *their* business alive.

- fighting millions tossed at worthless vendors for every little PHB fantasy, like a $2.5 million "system to automatically download call records from a switch and change their format so it can go into the billing system" - that I replaced with a $2,000 Linux box, ftp and grep, only to see the stuff bought anyways and put on my budget while the PHB got a free trip to Disney on the vendor's behalf (never mind that theirs never did work despite several visits by just-out-of-college $225/hour techs).

- solving PHB-induced crisis after crisis with no fanfare, often using my own funds, contacts, whatever, only to prove to the PHBs that their incompetence has no consequence

Imagine their horror during layoffs when I walked over to a fully functional company I own that afternoon (hey, I saw the writing on the wall a half-year in advance).

I'd swear, they were mad at not getting the satisfaction of my agony. Somehow, they feel the need for people like us to suffer so they can rationalize that they're somehow of value.

It's time to destroy the PHBs. Withdraw your expertise. Don't give them your minds. Don't enable their parasitism. Brilliant tech people are a direct threat - we represent intelligence and reason. Don't underestimate or think for a second that they aren't threatened by us and seek our destruction.

Instead, be accountable for yourself - either contracting, consulting or building your own company with other competent people. Work only with other competents; don't enable or empower these parasites. It's time to slay the PHB culture.

*scoove*

Click here for a guaranteed cure for unemployment

I despise Microsoft products, and don't use them. They are models of poor design and cater to the lazy-minded.
However, the government had no business to 'punish' microsoft for being successful. No-one has put a gun to my head yet and told me to use their products. But the state, the only part of our society vested with the use of uninitiated force, has chosen to attack a successful entrepeneur (the same state that buys almost exclusively microsoft products) and break up his company, not because his products suck, but because he has marketed his lame products so successfully.
See the Moral Defense of Microsoft site for the reasoned libertarian/capitalist viewpoint.
Don't forget that McNealy was more than a little uncomfortable with a government attack on the competition.
()-- Mycr0ft --()
Oh, and yeah, keep building superior GPL products and get everybody to stop using that microsoft crap. Keep it fair folks!

It won't work.

First and foremost, if we each told 1 non-technical person a day, we'd have a huge amount of overlap. We'd end up with nowhere near the ~36 million people you've estimated, unless we created a database to keep track of who's been "preached" to. This would be extremely difficult at best. :)

I wholeheartedly agree that this is nothing more than a trick on MS's part. But it was Scott Adams who identified human stupidity as the most powerful force in the universe. I expect most people will smile, nod, and completely ignore anything we say, internally countering with one of the following ideas -

A - Microsoft's logo is everywhere. Everyone else likes them, they must be good. (Bandwagon)
B - Microsoft is being unfairly prosecuted due to its success.
C - "Microwhatsit? Hi-y'all-storm? What's that? This doesn't affect me."
D - "Microsoft finally embraces different operating systems, and these guys are complaining!"

Let's assume we get half of the people you'd expect with no overlap. If we convince even half of those people to go "against the flow", that's only 9 million people. If we're lucky, maybe we'll get some exponential growth, and the people we convince will convince others, but most likely not. 9 million people will not make a difference if Microsoft gets the power it wants over everyone; 9 million people in the United States would not be enough.

Clearly, to me, there is a case for allowing business methods to be patented.

This is true. However, it's seems to only be favorable on a case-by-case basis. There should be a delineation between using the already existing and widely used free standards in a proprietary way (such as Amazon's One-Click shopping and Partners program), and something completely unique.

IMHO, if it's the latter case, then a company should have the rights to patent their business practice. However, if it's the former, than the patent should be denied.

The problem with this, is that who makes the call between what's completely unique and what's just a rehash of an old standard? Idealistically, this would be a committee of public-apointed representatives. Realistically, this could never happen, because just like any other elected official, they could be influenced by the big buisnesses.

So where do we draw the line (and it is a fine one at that)? Well, like I said, realistically it must be one of the two extremes; there really isn't any middle ground. In which case, I'd choose no government intervention. Granted, it may allow for such ridiculous patents as the Amazon ones, but it's better than a company not being able to protect their IP at all.

As for software patents, these are absolutely necessary in a competitive market. If you come up with the next killer app, why should you be disallowed from protecting what is rightfully yours?

It's issues like these that make me an objectivist.

--

The whole system is intertwined. The type of future described here is not that far off, but I stress that the REAL enemy underneath all of this is socialism. There would not be such a world of influence if the Constitution had been bulletproof enough to continue protecting our individual human rights. The more laws that are made to benefit people, groups, corporations, or any collectively-minded organizations, the more we are trampled to the point of being slaves. The people who are paying themselves off right now don't care about what happens when they die. They take a short-circuit to human progress and achievement and cash in all the money they have effectively TAKEN from us, and trade it for a check with insufficient funds.

Case in point - China. Here our extremely advanced technological revolution, not to mention our entire economy, is being handed away to a communist government. Our taxes continue increasing, our money continues disappearing.
"Is there a similiarity here? Oooooohhhh, I think there is."

I know this is turning into a rant, but I put up with what I see as the beginnings of shit like this, and I get really tired of it.

Anyone who wants to know anything about anything like this should read the works of Ayn Rand.

And I agree with Mad-cat, Harry Browne is by far the best candidate for president that we have right now.

That is all.

I think it does in a way. Most members of society agree to the tenet, "Hey, if I see you, I'll save your life." Why? So that others will save MY life if I am the one dying. Hence, me agreeing to than tenet increases the chances that someone will attempt to save my life, hence it is in my self-interest.

Are you willing to disregard this thing you "know"? You have a gut feeling as to what is right, which is what I meant by "know"

When I was younger, I had a gut feeling that masturbation was wrong, that it was a sin. I felt guilty for doing it. My parents never told me not to touch myself, never heard about it in church, I can't remember any specific event that would lead me to feel that way. Regardless, I felt guilty, like it was something to be ashamed of. However, after maturing a bit and giving it rational thought, I realized that it was nothing to be embarassed or ashamed about. So... that "gut feeling" of guilt, does that mean masturbation is "evil?" Hardly. It was an irrational thought, and shows the mental stress such irrational thinking can have on a person.

Rand said, basically

Again, it was out of context. You can read the whole quote at: http://www.aynrand.org/objectivism/Q3.ht ml. You can read the whole essay by going to your library and checking out a copy of Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal.

The one thing that I do strongly dislike that MS did was strongarm Intel to give up some of their technological advances. That appals me, and I think it bugs BillG too (he is a uber-geek and geeks don't like holding back technology). What I don't like is the view people have of Microsoft that they are a bunch of rich whining babies who deserve to get sued because they are so rich. If I had a nickel for everytime I've read, "Why should BillG not be sued, he's got so much money as it is..." (or something along those lines...) That infuriates me, those who say that are no better than the hordes of looters and moochers in Atlas Shrugged.

If I'm on a lifeboat with 6 other people, we won't get picked up for 20 days, we only have enough food to keep us alive for 10. People using Randian ethics won't sacrifice themselves, because they are too busy worrying about the consequences for them

An irrational thinker who has his self interest as his main concern, will do exactly as you say. A rational thinker will realize that everyone needs to work together. Remember, Rand is vehemenently against initiating physical violence. So the rational Randian wouldn't kill others, or steal their rations. He would try to keep everyone calm, worry about finding help, or coming up with viable solutions for the problem at hand.

You are the mayor of some city... the only option is for you to publicly execute someone for the crime, even if that person is innocent

Again, Rand is completely opposed to initiating physical violence. From the mouth of Rand: "... no man may obtain any values from others by resorting to physical force, and no man may initiate the use of physical force against others." - http://www.aynrand.org/objectivism/io.ht ml.

Self-interest is key. Read Atlas Shrugged, there is a ~65 page speech from the main character where Rand spells out in great detail her philosophy. (It was the hardest part of the book to get through. While it summed up her theory well, it's hard to read sixty some pages of a character's speech in a novel.) You cannot live a happy life sacrificing for others, you cannot lead a productive life sacrificing for others. The US gov't realized the nature of this and set up patents, allowing people to protect their inventions as an incentive to create. Do you think we'd have all of our modern marvels today if creators, entrepenuers, and scientists knew that whatever they created they had to share its secrets with all of their competitors? It's hard enough as it is, being in business for myself, knowing that I have to give (or be jailed, a use of physical force) 39% of my income to a government who gives part of that to people who don't feel like working.

If you have some time, I think you should try to find and read webpages that are against Objectivism, if you haven't already. You'll probably be surprised how many rational people don't agree with it

I have, and it's quite obvious not everyone agrees with it, else we would have a laissez-faire capitalist economy and a minimalist government. If everyone agreed with it we'd have no welfare, no public schools, no people who expected to be given a free handout.

I've also read most of The Voice of Reason, a collection of Rand's essays. There is a particular essay, "Altruism as Appeasement," that really struck home with me. It talks about how society and schools encourage people to stop thinking rationally and to feel guilt for having passionate self-interests. I wish I could find a version on the Web for you, but I've had no luck. It's a short essay, pick up the book from your library, it's worth it.

Don't buy that. From Rand: "Reality, the external world, exists independent of man's consciousness, independent of any observer's knowledge, beliefs, feelings, desires or fears. This means that A is A, that facts are facts, that things are what they are -- and that the task of man's consciousness is to perceive reality, not to create or invent it." (http://www.aynrand.org/objectivi sm/essentials.html)

I am no philosophy student and I've never claimed to be one. However, while reading Atlas Shrugged something just clicked inside me, I finally stopped accepting what I had always been told and started questioning my axiom base. While Objectivism may be "Fisher Price's My First Philosophy," it makes sense to me. My background in philosophy (or lack thereof) leads me to be best working with a simple philosophy. It is one that makes sense, in my opinion, since it is based upon reason. Why spend years debating on if we exist? To the Objectivist, one axiom is "existence exists." Pure and simple. Reality exists, things are what they are, A is A. You should take a breif moment out of your day (away from the potential time to read Shakespeare) and read "Introducing Objectivism," by Ayn Rand - http://www.aynrand.org/objectivism/io.ht ml. Seriously, it will take you like 30 seconds, it's a quick skim over the philosophy.

If you haven't seen _Roger & Me_ or _Citizen Kane_ yet, you should

I've seen Citizen Kane, but not Roger and Me. I'd go rent it tonight, but I don't own a TV (that probably ruins any credibility you had in me, a guy in this day and age without a TV!?!?!!) B'wa ha ha!

Don't buy that. From Rand: "Reality, the external world, exists independent of man's consciousness, independent of any observer's knowledge, beliefs, feelings, desires or fears. This means that A is A, that facts are facts, that things are what they are -- and that the task of man's consciousness is to perceive reality, not to create or invent it." (http://www.aynrand.org/objectivi sm/essentials.html)

I am no philosophy student and I've never claimed to be one. However, while reading Atlas Shrugged something just clicked inside me, I finally stopped accepting what I had always been told and started questioning my axiom base. While Objectivism may be "Fisher Price's My First Philosophy," it makes sense to me. My background in philosophy (or lack thereof) leads me to be best working with a simple philosophy. It is one that makes sense, in my opinion, since it is based upon reason. Why spend years debating on if we exist? To the Objectivist, one axiom is "existence exists." Pure and simple. Reality exists, things are what they are, A is A. You should take a breif moment out of your day (away from the potential time to read Shakespeare) and read "Introducing Objectivism," by Ayn Rand - http://www.aynrand.org/objectivism/io.ht ml. Seriously, it will take you like 30 seconds, it's a quick skim over the philosophy.

If you haven't seen _Roger & Me_ or _Citizen Kane_ yet, you should

I've seen Citizen Kane, but not Roger and Me. I'd go rent it tonight, but I don't own a TV (that probably ruins any credibility you had in me, a guy in this day and age without a TV!?!?!!) B'wa ha ha!

I just finished reading the "Philosophy" section of Fling's Sourceforge site and I've got that same creepy feeling I always get whenever I see a Randroid running at full tilt. I get the feeling that many geeks latch onto Rand because she appeals to their revenge fantasies.

I have no disagreement with the personal responsibility aspects of Objectivism -- ultimately, each one of us has to sleep in the bed that he or she made. The "me first always" stance really bothers me though. The blanket assumption that the disadvantaged are that way because they earned it or are lazy and incompetent smacks of the purely greedy kind of thinking that may end up being our ultimate demise.

Want a nervous laugh? Go hit the Ayn Rand Institute's site and check out articles such as Sweatshop Opponents want to Violate Worker's Rights, Against Environmentalism, or my all-time favourite, Why Christmas Should Be More Commercial (Even if you're not religious, don't you think we really overdo that holiday's shopping aspect?).

Want some food for thought? Check out author Paulina Barsook and what she has to say about the kind of libertarianism that many people in high-tech are buying into these days.

I just finished reading the "Philosophy" section of Fling's Sourceforge site and I've got that same creepy feeling I always get whenever I see a Randroid running at full tilt. I get the feeling that many geeks latch onto Rand because she appeals to their revenge fantasies.

I have no disagreement with the personal responsibility aspects of Objectivism -- ultimately, each one of us has to sleep in the bed that he or she made. The "me first always" stance really bothers me though. The blanket assumption that the disadvantaged are that way because they earned it or are lazy and incompetent smacks of the purely greedy kind of thinking that may end up being our ultimate demise.

Want a nervous laugh? Go hit the Ayn Rand Institute's site and check out articles such as Sweatshop Opponents want to Violate Worker's Rights, Against Environmentalism, or my all-time favourite, Why Christmas Should Be More Commercial (Even if you're not religious, don't you think we really overdo that holiday's shopping aspect?).

Want some food for thought? Check out author Paulina Barsook and what she has to say about the kind of libertarianism that many people in high-tech are buying into these days.

I just finished reading the "Philosophy" section of Fling's Sourceforge site and I've got that same creepy feeling I always get whenever I see a Randroid running at full tilt. I get the feeling that many geeks latch onto Rand because she appeals to their revenge fantasies.

I have no disagreement with the personal responsibility aspects of Objectivism -- ultimately, each one of us has to sleep in the bed that he or she made. The "me first always" stance really bothers me though. The blanket assumption that the disadvantaged are that way because they earned it or are lazy and incompetent smacks of the purely greedy kind of thinking that may end up being our ultimate demise.

Want a nervous laugh? Go hit the Ayn Rand Institute's site and check out articles such as Sweatshop Opponents want to Violate Worker's Rights, Against Environmentalism, or my all-time favourite, Why Christmas Should Be More Commercial (Even if you're not religious, don't you think we really overdo that holiday's shopping aspect?).

Want some food for thought? Check out author Paulina Barsook and what she has to say about the kind of libertarianism that many people in high-tech are buying into these days.

I just finished reading the "Philosophy" section of Fling's Sourceforge site and I've got that same creepy feeling I always get whenever I see a Randroid running at full tilt. I get the feeling that many geeks latch onto Rand because she appeals to their revenge fantasies.

I have no disagreement with the personal responsibility aspects of Objectivism -- ultimately, each one of us has to sleep in the bed that he or she made. The "me first always" stance really bothers me though. The blanket assumption that the disadvantaged are that way because they earned it or are lazy and incompetent smacks of the purely greedy kind of thinking that may end up being our ultimate demise.

Want a nervous laugh? Go hit the Ayn Rand Institute's site and check out articles such as Sweatshop Opponents want to Violate Worker's Rights, Against Environmentalism, or my all-time favourite, Why Christmas Should Be More Commercial (Even if you're not religious, don't you think we really overdo that holiday's shopping aspect?).

Want some food for thought? Check out author Paulina Barsook and what she has to say about the kind of libertarianism that many people in high-tech are buying into these days.

When checking out the PETA Parody Site I tried following numerous links, particularly in the Miscellaneous section. Most don't work at all, including some interesting titles such as The Implications of Nazi Animal Protection, Militant Vegetariansim, and Animal Rights and the New Man Haters.

No, none of these were hosted on peta.org, they were hosted elsewhere. Obviously, the long arm of PETA and its supporters appears to have reached well beyond peta.org in silencing their critics.

"Monopolies cannot come to exist without the assistance of government".

I think, in this case, it relates to absurdly overbearing patent and copyright protection.

Instead of breaking it up into smaller versions of itself that may each continue to act like the parent, why not take away the weapon that allowed them to get into the dominant position?

As punishment for being found guilty of unfair monopolistic business practices, the US government should permanently invalidate all copyrights and patents held by Microsoft.

They are not pro-Gates. They are pro-reason. They are against any restrictions on freedom, which is what Free Software is about, right? Try this it has some interesting reads if you fellas are really for freedom.

Libraries are a hallowed U.S. tradition with a lot of strong backers and the entire balkanization of what is now printed matter will not come to pass without a very big fight. Possibly one day the Library of Congress could play a new roll in distribution (perhaps a media key allowing reading on a library slate, not a great solution but a minimum one).

In the end the author and publisher need a way to make a profit or there won't be any e-books. Stallman's closing remark that copyright will be obsolete is inane. Why should anyone be forced to submit to an idea of the masses that the product of their labor should be free or anything else? Some authors might accept variable or no payment depending on the reader's level of enjoyment but if it works out like shareware it hardly seems like empowering the author. Currently the phone company makes more than the author on shareware downloads.

Micropayment + Transcopyright, an open source culmination of decades of work in the field (Ted Nelson) is one possible strategy in a universe of them.. and Stallman is focusing on shouting when he could be lining up allies. There is no reason why an open source or other software solution not created by publishers could not take hold, if it addresses the needs of authors and publishers. Legal provisions allowing fair (personal or editorial) use need to be covered by new technologies, especially when "solutions" like zoning of DVDs make it impossible to read certain "texts". When infrastructure makes it possible to charge for consumption of media dynamically, that will open the doors of accessibility to many more authors who will depend on some kind of copyright law (perhaps the software code will exceed the legal code) to make their living.

Last I heard, libraries buy their books. So a limit on the number of times a book is read sounds unworkable. But if prices fall naturally (by economics, not some cracker's idea of fairness) to a dollar a book, there is no reason why payment cannot be made up front or from a dedicated account. So I think Stallman's fears are based on an assumption of frozen technology, and that more technology will allow authors to apply all kinds of payment schemes including different levels of payment, annotation, and other characteristics, as envisioned by Nelson and others. It would be more interesting to do a serious analysis of the work done in this field and work toward a solution than to put blinders on and be alarmist. There may be dangers but there are great possibilities.

On the danger side I see communications carriers and credit card companies enforcing stiff inescapable charges, and companies with vested interests in video and audio taking the initiative with things which look more like entertainment titles than books. On the positive side, how about asking the ALA (or O'Reilly, or the EFF,...) for some of that 2 billion and start experimenting openly (not necessarily GPL) with Transmeta slates? That way people will be able to hack at this problem for a long, long time. It may take that long for copyright owners to all shift to a Napster/Stallman/Shareware-esque style of compensation (or not) based on its own merits.

I am no fan of the DMCA. But if Stallman wants to overturn the DMCA he should quit talking about trying to make copyright obsolete and put some energy into figuring out what initiative he could start or join to build a reasonable business model which can be influenced by the community of believers in electronic freedom. If his thinking stands solely on the ideas of GPL and uncontrolled dissemination of works he will lose credibility among those of us who live in a market economy and with it the opportunity to lead.

Just like the Mexican railroad in Atlas Shrugged, it's a way to potentially lose a lot of money.

You managed to make a post about the free market and include an Ayn Rand Reference!

Posting content like that is a great way to prove a point. That is, if your point is that you an idiot.

Well, at least there's no chance I'll ever read anything so stupid again.

Sorry to disappoint you, but you should try these wingnuts and these idiots. Hell, they're even dumber than you are :)

Why not? Ayn Rand was one of the most insightful philosophers of the 20th century, and her views make sense in today's world. For more information about Ayn Rand and her philosophy, see here.

Who is John Galt?

Ayn Rand is wrong. Fundamentally. If you can't appreciate that, then that's to bad.

Music corporations don't produce music; they merely buy it and sell it. And rape people on both sides of the equations. You pay $15 for a CD, and the artiest gets a quarter. It is severely fucked up, and, if you weren't in your "Ubercapitalist" mode of religious thinking. You would see that too.

Of course, the movie companies are in a different situation; as they produce there own art (witch costs huge amounts of money to produce). The situation isn't so clear-cut, but no one should ever be able to take away are constitutional rights just to be able to make more money.

Additionally, your post embodies the major (though not always true) criticisms of Jon Katz's articles: Verbosely pointless. What was your thesis? "This is bad, but not really that bad. It's complicated". I Think you stated it in the second to last paragraph, but I'm not really sure... Of course, this is the kind pompous, and intellectually immature stuff I would expect from a follower of the church of Ayn Rand.

[ c h a d o k e r e ]