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NYT Explores the World of Internet Trolls
prostoalex writes "New York Times magazine explores the history and status quo of Internet trolling. They look at the early days of Usenet trolling, current anonymous forums, and social networking pages as the latest venues for trolls: 'In the late 1980s, Internet users adopted the word troll to denote someone who intentionally disrupts online communities. Early trolling was relatively innocuous, taking place inside of small, single-topic Usenet groups. The trolls employed what the M.I.T. professor Judith Donath calls a pseudo-naïve tactic, asking stupid questions and seeing who would rise to the bait. The game was to find out who would see through this stereotypical newbie behavior, and who would fall for it. As one guide to trolldom puts it, If you don't fall for the joke, you get to be in on it.'"
Obligatory John Gabriel's Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory link:
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19/
Yes, and getting to see the process of production at The Boston Globe's second set of 4 presses in Billerica was a treat I got a few months ago. Although they print several things, generally 3 presses are for Globes, 1 for NYTs. Here's a slightly slimmer version of what I wrote up right after seeing the operation:
Our first stop was the engraving room, and like most of the printing process is now largely automated. The platform receives electronic copies of each paper and section it prints, these are then laser-enscribed onto various curved plates. Two 12 foot long machines laser engrave the blank plates, but the machines are entirely closed with only a small midnight window from which one can only tell if the machine is working or idle.
We did not spend much time in there, but among the interesting details is that it takes 4 plates per color page. There was also a stack of finished plates, each longer than the page that it was to print by about seven inches. The top has a about a three inch blank space, presumably to fit into the presses, with the bottom 4 bent at an angle to lock into the machines. If I had the chance I would have asked for more details from the staff in engraving, but they were in the midst of changing editions and with that creating new plates for the color front pages of the papers.
For a black page, only a single plate is needed. Color pages require 4, for the black, red, yellow, and blue (not 100% sure here, there might be two colors of red instead).
The next stop was the presses themselves, which are these four grand contraptions appearing three stories tall. Each one is painted yellow, with red industrial staircases and walkways winding around them. They are so massive in fact I could not tell where the blank paper came in, but from seeing the outcome below I would guess newsprint rolls are loaded up top.
The paper snakes down together as if it was a conveyor belt, and moves at such a speed one cannot tell what paper or section is being printed. Until the bottom-most machine the paper is an incredibly long single sheet, only being cut and folded at the last press step.
It is very loud, but this is to be expected, as the presses make up to 45,000 papers an hour (I believe that is per press, but I'm not sure. It was explained to me as we walked among the presses).
Taking a stop in the main watch room, there were several jump-suited men waiting around a table for the next edition plates to be complete so they can climb among the machines and install them. The operator stands guard, watching the LCD displays and analog meters.
The printed papers are picked up right off the press by a special conveyor system which grabs each copy at the center of the fold; Each paper is grabbed individually. This system conveyors from the floor into the ceiling above the watch room, right in front of the glass.
Quality-checking the paper, the operator opens a special window to the conveyor system to pull a freshly printed copy out of the fast moving line. He quickly verifies the text is even on the page, the color items look good, and the pages go in order. The four color cross in the upper right of the paper is used to verify the proper alignment.
From there we followed the process back to the main floor. This area is called the mail room, and it is where the sections are put together, bundled and palletized. The conveyor system, from which the papers start at floor level in the press room arrive in the mail room well above reach of the workers.
About 35 feet off the ground there are 4 conveyors (one per press) that split the papers up into 2 and then 4 conveyor segments. These 4 segments then go into special machines which grab the top of the paper and have blowers that opens the paper into a V shape. This is why the paper is not folded in the center but slightly below; It is to automate this process. The non-time-critical sections are dropped in there, such as the Arts. These sections are pre-printed earlier in the day.
At each point
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