So there's an interesting troll/counter-troll battle going on over at slashdot (though maybe troll is the wrong word, and we should call it a llort attack.)
It's being undertaken by someone whose last known alias was
Steve 'Rim' Jobs (aka Sir Haxalot), and whose goal is to get the highest possible karma (the virtue that brands you a good /. citizen.)
Now gaming the system to get high karma is not itself unusual -- 'karma whoring' was added to the lexicon of social behaviors, alongside flame and troll, years ago. Monsieur Jobs' goal, however, is to get karma while mocking the site and everything it stands for.
His MO, spelt out in the univeral language of Underwear Gnomes, is:
Step 1. Write empty, feel-good fluff that praises open source
Step 2. Mention somewhere that you use Gentoo
Step 3. Profit!
and the funny thing is, he does it (if you count succeeding at your goals as profit.)
His posts are cut-and-paste copies of posts elsewhere on the system, or parodies of vacuous open source cheerleading, as with
I'd really like to take this opportunity to congratulate both the Gentoo devs and the rsync devs on a job well done. This is one of the many reasons why I continue to use and recommend Open Source to my friends, my boss, and my colleagues. The community simply does a first rate job of identifying and patching problems in their software. Most commercial software vendors wish they had a track record as good as most of the important open source projects out there.
Keep up the great work, guys! I'm definitely donating to the Gentoo project this Xmas ;) It has put the fun back in computing for me.
which reads to me like the work of those "I never saw a Hollywood release I didn't love®" movie reviewers.
This drivel gets through the filters because slashdot's defenses are set up to prevent off-topic posts and divisive attacks (e.g. flaming or classic trolling), but Jobs is going for on-topic and unifying attacks, and then
bragging about it in his journal. So although he is publicly mocking slashdot, and exposing the assymetry of their content moderation, his posts get strong community approval, and he gets good karma.
The only hole so far is that when a small core of regulars saw his work, they "mod bombed" him, taking all his highly rated posts back down. So he has created a new identity, unknown to the members, but says he is going to keep using the Steve 'Rim' Jobs journal to brag about his exploits.
1. Jeff Axup on December 8, 2003 8:02 PM writes...
there was also an interesting exchange a month or so ago with a slashdot troll (probably the same one) in the comments section of 'everything in moderation' pertaining to banning methods:
Permalink to Commenthttp://www.everythinginmoderation.org/2003/10/tagging_difficult_users_with_infectious_markers.shtml
(he uses the name 20721)
2. Clay Shirky on December 8, 2003 9:44 PM writes...
I doubt Steve 'Rim' Jobs is 20721 -- 20721 is doing batch work, while SRJ seems interested in hand-crafted trolls. Also, 20721 seems far more literate, frankly, than SRJ.
Permalink to Comment3. F. Randall Farmer on December 9, 2003 1:43 PM writes...
Upon some reflection about this so-called troll, I find myself asking: "So what?”
Is 'sneaking' community-standards-compliant and community-reinforcing post passed user-moderator harmful in some significant way?
In short: Does the motivation for a 'good' act really matter in this context?
I smile at complete strangers. They don't know if I'm doing it because I find them pleasant to look at or if I'm thinking about bashing their head in. To the stranger, it doesn't matter. Usually, they smile back.
Slashdot rewards good posts, not good motivations, with Karma (potential to effect the system), and that is capped. If that Karma is then used to damage the system, the scope is limited (by the cap) and the moderators can further limit/repair it after the fact.
There are no software (reputation) systems that can measure user intentions. All we can do is attempt to encourage specific behaviors over others and provide tools to clean up any mess left behind by those with nothing better to do than piss in your sandbox.
Permalink to Comment4. Seth Finkelstein on December 10, 2003 10:40 PM writes...
Hmmm ... what distinguishes this "llort" from too many stock analysts - or columnists?! Being open about it?
Permalink to Comment5. Meme Engineer on December 12, 2003 9:05 AM writes...
These Slashdot metatrolls are amusing when relatively literate and willing to openly explain what they are doing. The link given by Jeff Axup has a very interesting thread.
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