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I'm a troll (not so much on Slashdot) and this is nothing to do with the reason why I troll. I'm not rude either, even when trolling.

Neither the GPP nor TFA are talking about real trolling. They are referring to griefers and spammers, and calling them all "trolls". True trolling is an art form. It is far more than mere griefing and harassment. In fact, a perfect troll is often not even recognized as a troll until it is far too late, and the stream of responses has taken on a life of its own.

For the best explanation of the art of trolling, you should read the The Subtle Art of Trolling. It describes the famous "How I Envy American Students" troll. which generated in excess of 3,500 responses and the greatest coup of all was when an innocent american student lost not only her internet account but was also expelled from high school for abuse of the computer systems. Somehow she had managed to get the blame for causing the troll.

*sigh*... I know, I know.

There was once a time when trolling was once an art form.

Sadly, those days have passed, and most of us grew up. :(

Way back what seems like many years ago now I contacted the webmaster and designer of Urban 75 to inform him that the Scientologists had ripped off his design. I actually first thought that he must be working for them but had to ask him just in case.

Check out these stories from that debacle...

http://www.urban75.com/rip_off.html

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2001/01/22/scientologist_web_site_rips_off/

I hope that this case can be used to one day prove the ridiculous double standard the cult seems to promote.

I know you are trying to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_troll troll, but is that the best you can do? This has got to be one of the lamest troll comments in a while on slashdot...

Put some effort into it at least! Let me get you started with a helpful guide to trolling http://www.urban75.com/Mag/troll.html

"On May 5, 1970, over 1,000 protestors came together on I-5, blocking southbound lanes, to speak out against the US's invasion of Cambodia, and the death of four Kent State antiwar protestors, shot by members of the National Guard." - http://www.historylink.org/essays/output.cfm?file_ id=2271

March 2, 2003: Peace activists took to the streets by the thousands yesterday in cities from Olympia to Bellingham as well as several locations in Seattle. Spurred by the first salvos in Iraq that pierced the uncertainty about what for months has been a potential war, yesterday's rallies had a decidedly more aggressive tenor than those just a few days earlier. ... In Bellingham, 300 to 500 peace activists made their way onto Interstate 5, temporarily blocking freeway traffic for two miles in either direction. - http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/113604_wpeace2 1.shtml

November 30, 1999: WTO - http://www.urban75.com/Action/seattle.html

April 30, 2004: LOS ANGELES -- Independent truckers protested mounting diesel fuel prices Friday by abandoning trucks in rush-hour traffic on one of the region's busiest freeways and staging rallies at two of the largest ports on the West Coast. - http://www.nbc4.tv/traffic/3255276/detail.html

March 27, 2006: LOS ANGELES -- More than 36,000 students from throughout Los Angeles County skipped classes and marched through streets and on various freeways Monday to protest an immigration bill being debated in Congress. - http://www.nbc4.tv/news/8289535/detail.html

Find more here: http://www.google.com/search?q=freeway+protest

Now which issue was it that you deem unworthy? Was it one of these? Your advice to protestors to be forgettable seems unlikely to bring attention to their cause -- something that was achieved by the disruptive, dangerous and memorable protests above. With the exception of the truckers opposed to $2.50/gal gas, the protesters seem to achieved both national attention and lasting results: Seattle is certainly never going to host the WTO again. Congress is working on the immigration law as I type this. We all know how Cambodia worked out (a sad story, that. By getting their way the nonviolent protestors indirectly killed about 1/4th of all Cambodian men, women and children. A heavy burden for people of conscience. *). Perhaps you could offer something more helpful. Are you by chance a protest organizer? Do you have a history of success in nonviolent promotion of social change? If so, the organization is almost certainly eager to have your contribution.

* - The Khmer Rouge regime is remembered mainly for the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million people (from an estimated 1972 population of 7.1 million), through execution, starvation and forced labor. - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khmer_Rouge

I think my point is that protestors should be tolerated as much as possible, but they should be reminded be careful which causes they take up.

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fuck you all

Preview FUD as in fuck under dust HAHA! WOEBGONGONGONGONGNJBONGONGONBONG

Trolling is an ART! http://www.urban75.com/Mag/troll.html http://www.urban75.com/Mag/troll.html http://www.urban75.com/Mag/troll.html http://www.urban75.com/Mag/troll.html http://www.urban75.com/Mag/troll.html

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fuck you all

Preview FUD as in fuck under dust HAHA! WOEBGONGONGONGONGNJBONGONGONBONG

Trolling is an ART! http://www.urban75.com/Mag/troll.html http://www.urban75.com/Mag/troll.html http://www.urban75.com/Mag/troll.html http://www.urban75.com/Mag/troll.html http://www.urban75.com/Mag/troll.html

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fuck you all

Preview FUD as in fuck under dust HAHA! WOEBGONGONGONGONGNJBONGONGONBONG

Trolling is an ART! http://www.urban75.com/Mag/troll.html http://www.urban75.com/Mag/troll.html http://www.urban75.com/Mag/troll.html http://www.urban75.com/Mag/troll.html http://www.urban75.com/Mag/troll.html

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fuck you all

Preview FUD as in fuck under dust HAHA! WOEBGONGONGONGONGNJBONGONGONBONG

Trolling is an ART! http://www.urban75.com/Mag/troll.html http://www.urban75.com/Mag/troll.html http://www.urban75.com/Mag/troll.html http://www.urban75.com/Mag/troll.html http://www.urban75.com/Mag/troll.html

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fuck you all

Preview FUD as in fuck under dust HAHA! WOEBGONGONGONGONGNJBONGONGONBONG

Trolling is an ART! http://www.urban75.com/Mag/troll.html http://www.urban75.com/Mag/troll.html http://www.urban75.com/Mag/troll.html http://www.urban75.com/Mag/troll.html http://www.urban75.com/Mag/troll.html

There really should be a website for those just starting out in the trolling art, to provide pointers and techniques so embarassments like this don't make it out it public.

The Subtle Art of Trolling

And for fairness...
Beware the Troll: A Practical Guide

Maybe the ./ edds should read this

Section 3: Content
Make your subject a relevant one. Posting "Star Trek Sucks" into hk.forsale is not going to work very well and is liable to utterly destroy your hard earned reputation as a troller overnight.

You do not have to make the subject clear. Trolls are aimed at two audiences, the respondees and the lurkers.

The best trolls reveal their true subject only to the lurkers. In every sense those who reply to your troll are your tools. So choose a theme for your troll and stick to it.

Outwardly you need to appear sincere, but at the same time you have to tell your *real* audience that this is blatant flamebait. Your skill is shown in the easy way that you manipulate large areas of the Usenet community into making public fools of themselves.

"There are some individuals out there who don't just enjoy winding up people on newsgroups and bulletin boards - it's their sad lifestyle choice!"

Excerpt from "The Subtle Art of Trolling".

are Crystal Meth addicts

are Crystal Meth addicts

is a Crystal Meth addict

are Crystal Meth addicts

Moderation
50% Funny
50% Troll

Hehe! Perfect!

In all seriousness, though, I can't imagine a single scenario where that post would elicit "predictable responses or flames", which is what trolling is. It seems the only troll, as so often happens, was the moderator.

Oh well. Even with all the troll-mods on /., my karma still roxors :)

Okay, so it's been tough, but you've finally managed to stop yourself from taking Dell up on its kind offer to crush your iPod into a thin paste in exchange for $100 off one of its own stellar music players. Good for you. Only now you're finding yourself tempted by those new players that Sony introduced yesterday-- in particular the NW-HD1 Network Walkman. As faithful viewer Mike Scherer pointed out, MacMinute reports that the NW-HD1 (catchy name) has a 20 GB hard drive, but weighs only 4 ounces-- almost thirty percent less than a 20 GB iPod, and only about half an ounce more than a miniPod with a mere 4 GB storage capacity. Trust us, size does matter, as through-the-roof miniPod sales will attest; Dell's player is a clunky slab by comparison, and when we had the misfortune to encounter a 40 GB Nomad Zen last weekend, we mistook the thing for a brick wrapped in tin foil.

Oh, but the temptation doesn't stop at size; whereas the iPod claims 8 hours of use per battery charge, the NW-HD1 boasts 30. What's more, since a 20 GB iPod goes for $399 and Sony's minuscule new player will sell for "less than $400", pricing will likely be a dead heat. So let's recap, here; for the same price as an iPod, Sony offers a smaller and lighter player with gallons more juice per charge, the same size hard disk, and-- did we mention this?-- the ability to store 8,000 more songs. Really! See? Apple claims its 20 GB iPod will put 5,000 songs in your pocket, while Sony's press release insists that the NW-HD1 will hold "up to 13,000 four-minute songs." No wonder you're feeling tempted.

Well, it's cold shower time, kiddies. First of all, any sort of song capacity comparison is a joke, since a 20 GB hard drive is a 20 GB hard drive. Sony's drives aren't enchanted by a dusting of magical pixie dust before leaving the factory or anything. (At least, if they are, you'd expect Sony to play that up as a differentiating factor.) The difference in numbers here is that Apple bases its song count on 128 Kbps AAC files, while Sony's tally assumes "songs recorded at 48 kilobits per second." Yes, 48 Kbps. Considering how many people whine that even 128 Kbps AAC files don't sound good enough, we're going to go out on a limb and assume that 48 Kbps songs in any format are probably going to sound like a portable handheld AM radio playing from the bottom of a well while a few dozen people pop bubble wrap nearby.

And here's the real deal-breaker: about that format? Turns out that Sony's decided to go with its proprietary ATRAC3 format... and nothing else. While Apple pushes AAC pretty heavily (it's the only thing it sells at the iTunes Music Store), at least the iPod can also play AIFF files, WAVs, the new Apple Lossless format, and probably most importantly of all, good ol' MP3s. If you get an NW-HD1, though, you'll have to transcode your entire music library into ATRAC3 before you can carry it around with you, and believe us when we tell you that you're not going to want to do that.

See, aside from the time you'd have to invest, there's the little matter of the fact that, quality-wise, the ATRAC3 format apparently sucks eggs whole through a Crazy Straw. For evidence, we point you towards the results of Roberto Amorim's l

Wow, what a great Troll, best one yet. Sorry to have wasted your time. Pipe up and remember to not inhale!

or
"Prescott" as in fat bastard who deserves a good slap?

Overweight and generates lots of hot air, I think that's much more appropriate.

...the terrorists won and what was a free country has become a facist theocracy...

troll v.,n. To utter a posting on Usenet designed to attract predictable responses or flames. Derives from the phrase "trolling for newbies"; which in turn comes from mainstream "trolling";, a style of fishing in which one trails bait through a likely spot hoping for a bite.

The well-constructed troll is a post that induces lots of newbies and flamers to make themselves look even more clueless than they already do, while subtly conveying to the more savvy and experienced that it is in fact a deliberate troll.

If you don't fall for the joke, you get to be in on it.

More here

That is misrepresentation and libel.

Except legally, you can't libel (or slander) the dead. So, while it may be misrepresentation, it is not libel.

While it may be reprehensible to say false things about someone who has died, in most states it is not legally actionable. No action can be taken on behalf of a dead person.

However libel does not extend to the dead.

Their oh-so original narconon website

Kinda ironic when you consider how much they scream about the Fishman affadavit

Learn how to troll, dumbfuck.

Start with The Art of Trolling

during my daily surf, two month ago, i found this to make my own morse code. have fun! =)

I sense a disturbance in the force as if millions of trolls cried out with bad fart jokes for this topic... ;)

A troll (in net terms) is not someone replying to a straight line with lame jokes.

From The the Subtle art of Trolling:

"In Usenet usage, a troll is not a grumpy monster that lives beneath a bridge accosting passers-by, but rather a provocative posting to a newsgroup intended to produce a large volume of frivolous responses. The content of a "troll posting generally falls into several areas. It may consist of an apparently foolish contradiction of common knowledge, a deliberately offensive insult to the readers of a newsgroup, or a broad request for trivial follow-up postings."

The first I remember was Urban 75's (Hi Mike!) slap-a-politician game in '97 (around the same time as their infamous slap-a-spice-girl). But in this google post, Mike says he nicked the idea from a US site - anybody know what it was?

The web site and forum are now being used by the community to organise protests and petitions for his return to the force, after he was suspended after allegations of allowing a boyfriend (yes, just to make the story even more juicy for the Press, he was openly gay) to smoke cannabis. He has proved very popular with the populace (a figure quoted on the website is 83% approval), and they are campaigning for his return to the police force.

Read more at the website.

On the humour site, you might want to see the Punch a Celebrity page: although most of them are British, so the non-British may be bemused by these "celebrities"...!

PS Brixton is an area of London (England) in case you didn't know.

http://www.urban75.com/Action/rip.html

There are now 10 branches of McDonalds in Prague and one strategically placed on every major road going into the city. There are plans for 40 KFC outlets in the Czech Republic by the end of the year and Coca Cola and Pepsi signs are everywhere. It is impossible to evade their presence.

Would they be put there if the first 4 locations failed? No. McDonalds is not the whole problem, although I will admit it is mostly to blame. But you have to remember that the only reason McDoanlds continues to grow is because of consumers. If people don't buy McDonalds food, there would be no McDonalds. But people like the convenience, the low price and the fact that they know what they are getting. They know exactly what is on a hamburger, what the chicken nuggets will taste like and what kind of sauce they can get.

This is the same thing as a picture I saw of the WTO protests. When you protest in Nikes and Gap clothes, or when you protest McDonalds by only eating there once a week, the problem isn't going to go away. By boycotting a product, you can affect the corporation. But since most people don't care, this is very unlikely to happen..

=-=-=-=-=

I am a founder and principle in a company that provides qaulity assurance consulting and outsourced testing services to North American companies. And having worked with companies all over the continent, what's happening in NY is happening everywhere...

We have done a lot of work with a huge variety of companies including many dot.coms. Some of the business management and technical management practices I have personally seen have both amazed and disgusted me. New office space = party. Sure, it's great to have a party for your clients, associates and friends. But why on earth would you spend upwards of $25K on a party?!? That's 5 to 10 employee salaries for the month. Maybe that's your rent cost. How do you explain to the 7 employees you lay off next month tht you can't afford their salaries because you had a party? If the company was a brokerage firm or any other comparable service firm, would you have spent a similar amount on your opening party? Having a great culture for your employees is important, but it can't be all consuming. Your employees don't care one whit if you buy them a hot tub if it means laying a couple off next month or bleeding money until you have to lay them all off...

We have been asked by prospective clients to perform work for lower rates and pre IPO stock options. These clients have little to no money to spend on our services. One question we always ask these dot.coms when they solicit our services is "how do you make money?" If they say "banner advertising on our site" or something analagous to BS, we blow them off. Not nice to say, but we're trying to improve the quality of their products and services while growing and building our own service company, not make their bottom line for the quarter look good enough to justify buying a big screen TV and SPS2.

The technical comptence of some of the programmers and designers that work at these firms is appalling. I have met "senior internet developers" who were being billed out at over $150US/hr whose code looked like it was written by a 2nd year CompSci student. I haven't coded in over 5 years, and even I could find huge gaping holes in their stuff. I am constantly amazed that some people survive in this industry, that there isn't greater accountability. One dot.com I know who laid off some people recently, including their lead developer, were forced to hire him back on because no one could decipher his code. Amazing, but spaghetti coding is making a comeback...

A side issue: asking about hours *actually* worked compared to salary is always a good idea. I see many web dev firms that pay people a pretty good salary, give them free coffee/pop/etc., buy them meals 2-5 times a week, send them to Mexico for week-long vacations as a "bonus" for meeting deadlines but do not pay out overtime or allow people to bank their hours and take them off later. These people think "wow, I make $70K a year, and I get all this free stuff" but it's the employer who's getting the great deal here: they get you to work 18hr days 6 days a week and don't have to pay you an extra cent (or any extra related taxes).

Getting involved, either as a service provider for a dot.com, or as an employee for one, you have to be responsible for your choices. If you only care about money in the short term, then go ahead and take your chances. But don't be surprised if people can sense that you carry the negative cachet of having worked at or with a failed dot.com...

Remember that for many people, it's not about the money. It's about building something you believe in, something to which you can point and proudly say "I did that." Coolness only means so much if you disappear from the high-tech landscape after 5 years... without a trace.

Why "solve" this "problem"? Having buildings produce units automatically is a FEATURE. Try ctrl-click to build in TA Kingdoms, for example.

Rather than "cracking down", I think improvement of the UI should be encouraged. It's supposed to be a strategy game, not a clicking-speed game, right?

Believe me, there are quite a few of us here in Europe who aren't pleased about large US (or other) corporations such as Monsanto dictating the New Food Chain of Command.

And action is exactly how we made it a political issue. Supermarkets here in the UK are queuing up to certify their food as organic (highlighting a whole new myriad of labelling loopholes, but...) Why? Because non-violent direct action brought it into the news.

Hamish

p.s. Fingers crossed for the Fife six, who are soon to answer charges in the UK's GM test case.

The fact is, the government and corporations have LONG been stepping and crushing people, but it's always been the poor. No one cares about the poor! Now they're invading your space. The middle and upper middle class. Crushing your rights and freedoms. Recently large numbers of people have been protesting things like the G8, and in November, the WTO in Seattle. University students protesting against sweatshop labor. Thousands and thousands of people. And they're all involved in these things DESPITE the fact the corporate media never mentions them at all. Somehow, people are fed up and have discovered ways on their own, to try to fight back. Right now the largest community run microradio station, KPFA, is protesting against Pacifica because Pacifica wants to sell KPFA because of it's large audience! People have been outraged and massive protests have been going on there.

Our government hasn't just now decided to become corrupt, it has long been so. it is just now invading the "freedoms" of the middle/upper class of the country, where as before it was only hurting the voiceless poor and people of other countries (and still is I might add).

From killing off native americans in the past and now, to using slave labor in the country, and now using slave labor in third world countries, raping the earth's resources for profits and to feed our addictive consumption rates, suppressing the rights of women, and long promoting right-wing Christian fundamentalism...how can it not be clear the US isn't perfect like they lie and make you believe? The US is f-cking evil...and if you don't believe me now, you will soon enough...when they limit your freedom, or put you away.

http://www.savepacifica.net
http://www.infoshop.org
http://www.protest.net
http://www.commondreams.org
http://www.zmag.org
http://www.fair.org
http://www.foodnotbombs.org/
http://jya.com/crypto.htm
http://www.icdc.com/~paulwolf/cointel.htm
http://www.urban75.com
http://www.oneworld.org
http://www.mediafilter.org


There you go. Arm yourself with information. Don't believe the world is perfectly all right. Now apparently the short-sighted people are beginning to see they were wrong. Don't think you're alone for thinking something is wrong, there are millions out there who know it already. From those educated on the subjects, to those experiencing the abuses caused by this horrible corporate owned world, and their servant governments.