Slashdot trolling phenomena
As anonymous posting is allowed on Slashdot (see Anonymous Coward), trolling and spamming on Slashdot is a highly evolved phenomenon. It is a bizarre and complex subculture involving attempts at the "first post"...and other unusual juvenalia.
This is a list of various trolls which one may come across when browsing Slashdot.
First post
Every time a new story is posted on Slashdot, comments may be posted discussing it. Because of this, there is often competition between Slashdot posters to post the first comment on a story. Some first posters try to make a short insightful comment to avoid being moderated down. The more immature first posts often consist of a subject saying "first post!" or "FP" and have no body, and sometimes people deliberately post "first post" messages a ridiculously long time after the original story has been submitted (Example) as a parody of the first post. There are many other variants of the first post. Example 1, Example 2
Natalie Portman, naked and petrified with hot grits
Natalie Portman is a popular target for the affections of many Slashdot trolls. When referring to her, they frequently profess their love for a statue of the petrified actress, preferably covered in hot grits. Naked and Petrified is now such an infamous troll that it virtually epitomises Slashdot trolling, and is often referred to and parodied in Slashdot comments. Other incarnations of the troll suggest that Natalie Portman pours hot grits into their underwear. Example (lengthy)
Comment explaining the origin of N&P
*BSD is dying
Quite frequently (especially for BSD-related Slashdot stories) a comment will be posted detailing the manner in which BSD operating systems are dying. These comments are generally all identical, following to the letter the form of this comment. Parodies of this troll have also been posted, such as this comment stating that Slashdot is dying.
When a story mentioning a new gadget is posted on Slashdot, it will invariably be proposed that the power of a Beowulf cluster of the new gadgets would be incredible. Such comments are generally prefaced with "Imagine a Beowulf cluster of these things!" Example 1, Example 2
Stephen King is dead
This needs little explanation. This troll merely posts a comment stating that the author has just heard on the radio that Stephen King has been found dead in his Maine home. A good example of this can be found here.
Business plans
This troll is based upon a fictitious business plan concocted on the television show South Park, in which some gnomes have a three step business plan, consisting of:
- Steal underpants
- ???
- Profit!
For Slashdot stories where an individual or organisation is alleged to have performed some controversial action, an anonymous wag will invariably post a false business plan based on this template, with the controversial action as the first step. Example
Goatse.cx is a web site containing pictures that most viewers consider offensive. A popular sport on Slashdot is to post links to the web site under such guises as being another link to the article, or as a rebuttal to the article.
A variation of this is for a troll to accuse a legitimate link as goatse.cx, sometimes the moderators don't check the link and the legitimate post gets moderated down.
Yet another kind of goatse.cx comment is a simple ASCII art version of the goatse.cx picture surrounded with a square border and a derogatory word written inside the anus of the picture.
See also Rotten.com.
Penis bird
These troll comments consist of a nonsensical or provocative subject line and a body consisting of a crude ASCII representation of a bird perched on a penis by its claws. This picture is also hosted at Rotten.com and can be found here. (Note: this link is potentially offensive.)
IN SOVIET RUSSIA...
In these posts, trolls usually begin their comments with the subject "IN SOVIET RUSSIA..." (all capitals) and typically proceed to reverse the order of words in that story's headline, usually changing the verb slightly to maintain subject/verb agreement and changing the object of the sentence to the second-person "YOU!". So, [subject][verb][object] usually becomes IN SOVIET RUSSIA... [object][verb] YOU! Example 1 Example 2
The phrase "In Soviet Russia..." is a signature of the jokes of Russian comedian Yakov Smirnoff.
Page widening/Lengthing
These are attempts to widen pages beyond readabillity by posting a continuous line of characters. Most likely due to its character-width, the uppercase letter 'W' is very popular for these. However, a good number of browsers are no longer susceptible to this. Example
Reigniting flamewars
Very popular on KDE, GNOME, BSD or Linux articles, a troll tries to explain why a particular desktop environment, operating system, programming language or other concept is inferior to others in a way intended to annoy. This type of troll will either make an outlandish and obvious claim or subtly use a valid criticism of something in an aggravating fashion.
E.g:
- "The K stands for Krap."
- "Why would I want a desktop with a smelly foot on it?"
- "Linux has immensely poor SMP support."
- "My BSD machines have much better uptimes and stability than my Linux machines."
- "Object-oriented programming is difficult to use and doesn't increase productivity."
This type of post is usually moderated down as flamebait, but sometimes causes a flamewar to begin amongst those who reply and the troll gets his 'bite'.
All of the above
All of the above pheonmena may be combined: http://pepper.idge.net/slashdot/i-do-it-wrong