Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Path: news.cinenet.net!news.ececs.uc.edu!news.kei.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!su-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!in1.uu.net!uucp5.uu.net!world!kibo From: kibo@world.std.com (James "Kibo" Parry) Subject: Trolling for dollars (was: Year 2000 urgency not needed?) Sender: news@world.std.com (Mr Usenet Himself) Message-ID: X-Kibo-Equipment: a distributed Lego robot (distributed by accident) Date: Sun, 15 Jun 1997 06:48:12 GMT X-Battlestar-Galactica-Date: 9581 centons, 71 microns, .04 mugars Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 References: <5mmvne$dqn$1@quasar.dimensional.com> <33a70219.6657454@news.netcologne.de> <5ncai7$m50$1@Radon.Stanford.EDU> <33adaf7b.12775503@news.onramp.net> <5nkghj$9ek$1@Radon.Stanford.EDU> <866055791.22941@dejanews.com> <339f04e2.15568381@news.utk.edu> <866133271.11277@dejanews.com> <33afe969.29355871@news.onramp.net> Nntp-Posting-Host: ppp0a010.std.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Organization: welcome datacomp X-Newsreader: Yet Another NewsWatcher 2.4.0 Lines: 83 Xref: news.cinenet.net alt.religion.kibology:33001 In alt.religion.kibology, jaffo@onramp.net wrote: > > Michael Straight wanted to share: > : > : High marks for humor, but multiplied by a fairly low difficulty rating, > :your total score is still well above average in a slow week for ARK. > > I'm sorry, I have to give Maelstrom much higher marks than you do. > > The quality of the responses makes all the difference for me. > > Every time I read one of these and think, "Naw. Too obvious! He's overplayed > his hand." He gets three more fish. > > FLAWLESS VICTORY! That, indeed, is what makes a good troll. My strategy is to see how ludicrous I can make the trollery and still have someone fall for it. For instance, "William Shatner owns six pairs of green socks." isn't a good troll if he owns seven pairs. "Isn't William Shatner a pair of green socks?" is a good troll, but ONLY if it works, and generates one of the four desired responses: LEVEL 1 TROLLAGE (GULLIBOZO, 100 points): "He is? Oh no! Now I'd better tell everyone else I know who used to like him!!!" Believes everything he or she reads in actual print, which includes Usenet. LEVEL 2 TROLLAGE (CYCLOPEDANT, 10 points): "No he isn't. I know because he was on Star Trek last night and spent six hours enlarging every frame on my computer to look for green socks and you're wrong, you must be stupid or something!" Lacks a bullshit detector. LEVEL 3 TROLLAGE (IMPEDANT, 3.14159 points): "I know this must be an attempt to troll me, but I'll answer it anyway: No, he isn't. He is a human being." Bullshit detector malfunctioning, allowing pedantal lobe to override. LEVEL 4 TROLLAGE (OTHER, 1/2 point): "I don't know." Doesn't know but seems too interested for own good. The desired response to an attempt at trolling is *not* a flame. Flame-bait is not trolling, and trolling is not flame-bait, although it sometimes generates flames from those whose bullshit detector is connected directly to the bullshit generator. Flames generated by attempts to troll people do not affect your score. I should mention also the concept of a META-TROLL, which consists of posting a COMPLETELY ACCURATE, TRUE, SANE statement and having trollage ensue. (true statement) "Nichelle Nichols on 'Star Trek' was dating the producer, Gene Roddenberry!" (level 2 response) "No, that was Majel Barrett!" (explanation, not promulgated) Gene Roddenberry really was dating Nichelle "Lt. Uhura" Nichols *and* Majel "Nurse Chapel" Barrett at the same time. Meta-trolls generate BONUS POINTS, doubling your score. There's also the COUNTER-TROLL, which is the concept of parrying a troll with another troll, often done by people whose bullshit detector is connected to the trollerizer: (obvious troll) "Major Barrett wrote every episode of 'Star Trek' with his wife, Jean Roddenberry." (troll detected and parried) "Actually, you're thinking of 'Deep Babylon Nine', starring George Lucas's pet rabbit Binky." If the counter-troll generates trollage, the counter-troller receives double points, and they are deducted from YOUR score, you LOSER! The first person on the Internet to receive 10,000,000 points will be declared the winner and will receive "hitsies". Also you must take a drink whenever someone mentions Star Trek, ever. -- K. I invented trolling the year after I invented the smilie. Also I didn't say if he _gets_ hitsies or _GETS_ hitsies.