word munger's Journal: Flaming trolls

Slashdot has an ugly underside. This is the world of trolls. Trolls come in several flavors. The classic definition of troll is "an electronic mail message, Usenet posting or other (electronic) communication which is intentionally incorrect, but not overtly controversial." FOLDOC makes a distinction between "troll" and "flame bait", which is a less subtle post intended to incite. On slashdot, the idea of a troll has evolved to subsume classic trolls, flame bait, and off-topic posts.

Any front-page story on slashdot will inevitably be bombarded with trolls. Simply changing the moderation threshold to -1 reveals a whole new world of crude, even hateful posts. Many of these are immediately moderated down by the site editors, and others are quickly caught by community moderators, but occasionally such a comment slips through the radar, giving the slashdot community an edge rarely seen in mainstream journalism.

Perhaps the most notorious troll is the hideous goatse link. Someone has apparently registered the domain "http://goatse.cx" and used it to host an obscene image. I won't include a link here, but if you're brave, type the url into your browser address box to see it. Trolling comments would include a link to this site in an otherwise innocuous statement. Venemous flame wars ensued.

Because slashdot makes it easy for anyone to post a comment anonymously, and because of the site's popularity, these acts of vandalism are probably inevitable. Like the red-light district of a city, the world of trolls is an intriguing place to visit. I'll probably spend a few more entries discussing them.