HOWTO: Troll Sniffing 101

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An amusing diary by doinaheckuvanutjob at DailyKos goes into some of the tactics used by "concern trolls" on progressive discussion boards. If you are not already familiar with the term "concern troll" you should be. You'll see more and more of them as the majority chairmanship election approaches. As we now know, even high-level Republican staffers like to troll, so expect concern trolls to get sneakier and more subtle.

There will doubtless also be a rise of incidents of false accusations. Please read the DU rules. While some slack is cut because we like to toy with them a bit, never "call out" a poster for being a troll. Instead, use the alert button.

Welcome to Troll Sniffing 101. Pick up your syllabus in the stack near the door.

I thought it might be useful for some registered DUers to have a little guide on how to trollspot. There are times when you suspect a person is a disrupter, but they are either playing it very close to the line without stepping over, or they are just personally ornary and not in fact actually a troll. How do you tell?

First, check to ensure that is is not just a drunk TYJ. :evilgrin: Seriously, there are a few colorful posters (yes you too DG ;-) ) who are not trolls. These folks you will just have to grow to know and love over time.

Trollsniffing Procedure

Disclaimer: I'm not sure anymore what features are available to donors only. But hey, isn't it about time to donate anyway?

First, use your browser's "Find in page feature" and load the suspects screen name into the search box. Most browsers will allow you to keep that search box term handy as you change pages, and it can really speed things up.

Next, at the top of the DU page, click on this:

search

Paste the suspect's name in the "Keyword(s)" field. In the "search which forum" dropdown, select "Big Forums (Conference)" (unless of course you know that the suspect posts in a topic forum and want to look there instead.)

In the "Search which field(s)" dropdown, select "Author".

You want to leave the "Search how many days in the past?" box as is ("All active topics") for your first search.

Click on "Search Now!" There should be links at the right of the screen.

Open a few of these DU threads and click the "Find Next" button on your browser's "Find in page" dialogue. That should quickly allow you to find replies by the suspect, and by going back to the search results and examining several of these threads, you should be able to decide whether the suspect is showing a pattern of trolliness, or whether they are just a normal DUer that forgot to take their meds today.

While you are doing this, keep a lookout for particularly good examples that really show blatant trollish behavior. When you find one, click on the subject of the suspect's post, so that it is the post displayed at the top of the thread list. Copy that URL someplace, and build up a short list.

After you are done, go back to the best example you found. Again, make sure that the suspect's post is the one displayed at the top of the thread. Then hit the Alert button on the bottom of the box containing the suspect's reply to send a message to the forum administrators, and paste in URLs of some of the other examples you found, so administrators can more easily decide whether the suspect needs a block of granite dropped on their head.

This has been "Troll Sniffing 101" We hope you enjoyed your training course. If you would like to report a problem or omission in the course materials, or you think the TA was making a pass at you, please place your evaluation forms in the thread as you leave.

In closing

Remember, no matter what their primary agenda is, a troll's base goal is to make you waste time in arguments and flame wars while their friends go out use their time more usefully to win the election. That's why a lot of them will kick up old "rich people suck" and "smoking ban" flamewars just to keep us distracted from the real effort. Don't feed the trolls, unless of course you are just horsing off and plan to eventually report them.