Trolling techniques

Newbies on the board may not have come across Inquisitor or their style of posting before. We can assure you that we get a lot of it here and we're quite used to it. The methodology is quite easy to recognize, but for newbies I thought I would describe it here, so they can better understand how such people operate.The first point to make is that you can use Zephan or Inquisitor's techniques with any subject whatsoever against any opponent whatsoever.Let's take the origin of early 19th century Estonian knitting patterns as an example...Firstly accuse your opponent of being obviously ignorant:"That you can call Parnovsky an expert make you sound stupid to anyone who knows anything on this subject." or "You show absolutely no knowledge of this at all and you're just beginning to sound like an idiot - anyone can cut and paste a comment on haarttinnasa. When will you post YOUR definition of a plain stitch? I predict never - because you effectively have no mind of your in these matters."Sound familiar in tone and technique? See how easy it is to do this without actually knowing anything about the subject, other than one or two key terms which can be dropped in to the post.Secondly, pick up on ANY point you can in your opponent's post, but ensure you do not make any substantive statement yourself, because if you do you will leave yourself open to the same attack:Read your post again. You say "huovista is not known until 1830, so we can date this later huovistinaa to perhaps 1850." You reveal your total prejudice you dumazz and you're too blind to even see it! Just because huovista is not known doesn't mean it didn't exist. What a loser! Saying "later huovistinaa" just shows how blindly prejudiced you are - you already believe huovistinaa to be what you are trying to prove. Take a logic course!Again, I'm sure the tone and technique are familiar.Thirdly, refuse to make any substantive statement, insisting that this is your opponent's role, and hoping that you can appear authoritative by taking the high ground.You're the one claiming that plain stitch is different in Estonia - but you cannot or will not even define it. PROVE to me that you know what you're talking about, then I might have time for a discussion. But until you can demonstrate that you even know the basic concepts, I have to assume your just a blindly prejudiced ignorant dumazz.See? And the cool thing is - if the opponent responds with a defintion, they have effectively conceded that it is their role to provide it. Now you're on the high ground and you can take full advantage of it. You can now play the master card of demanding some sort of "authoritative" position from your opponent - especially if this can be done in an area where there is no appropriate codifying body - science, logic, knitting etc - so much the better. If they provide a definition, you demand a better one."That's YOUR definition? It's pathetic. It has been refuted more times than you could possibly know. Show me ONE official definition that agrees with you and I'll consider replying."From now on it's plain sailing. You have shown nothing of your hand - not even that you have no hand to show, but you have attacked your opponent in four areas from which they cannot hit back without using your own techniques.How to respond to this? Well, the first thing may actually be to dance a little with such a correspondent. They may not be intentionally mendacious. We have seen this with quite a few posters over the years, who do eventually get on track and post substantively. They start off with virulent, demanding posts, then settle down into more reasoned argument when they realize that they are not getting anywhere, and that their opponents may actually have some interesting things to say- even if we disagree with every word.But let's assume the pattern just continues. This is where we are with Inquisitor.You can ignore the troll - which is fine, and perhaps the best course if you feel there is a danger you might stoop to their tactics through frustration.To a certain extent you can wait for the troll to trip up, which they will do. Zephan, hilariously, got muddled over "burden of proof." However, because they never have to post anything substantive this can be a long wait. The more they merely respond, rather than initiating, the less chance there is.You can also wait for them to be banned - most often because they just resort to a stream of insubstantial and insulting posts. Remember, their key motivation is to show their cleverness compared to others - they will attempt this from the first post by referring to the foolishness of others - but eventually they have to make this point more and more insistently and in the long run will just be reduced to one or two totally content-free insulting posts. At that point it is farewell. This course is inevitable if the response to their posts is calm, reasoned and substantiated. Their response to measured reason, and substantiation, is as visceral as that of a vampire to garlic.Finally, you can call their bluff. This can work extremely well, if the troll gets over confident. Remember the example of Zephan, whose credibility vanished as soon as he declared himself to be "an expert in evidence." From that point on, it was downhill all the way, because every post revealed that claim to have been a totally empty boast. Calling their bluff can be pretty easy, but it requires discipline - and the cooperation of other posters. At it's simplest it is the equivalent of saying: we know we have a lot to learn, we know our knowledge is imperfect in some of these areas, can you take an example and post something that will enlighten us? For example, what is the most important issue in 19th century Estonian knitwear? Chances are you will never hear from them again - the one thing they dare not do is put their head above the parapet.So be patient. Read the troll's posts, learn from their techniques, laugh at their vanity, and wait.

Your kung-fu (post-fu?) is strong, Sifu Pamboli. I see that I can learn much from you.Have there been others who attempted to use this style of troll-fu? I have only seen its use by Zephan/Inquisitor, the shapeshifting master of a thousand ID's and only one argument.

Without checking back through the archives - I am a bit pressed for time today - I would say "nos' and "wordswordsman" were good examples you could check out. I think they were actually tempted into the mistake of posting a couple of substantive points, as I remember. That was fun.

I know they've been made elsewhere but some positive suggestions could be made too.Newbies, shouldn't post at all for at least a few days (I went about a month before I did).Newbies, shouldn't post more than 2 topics to start with. If those spawn more then they can follow those too.No one should open new topics if they aren't able to keep up with research etc. on topics they started in the first place.

Sumatsu (sp?) has used this technique a great deal with his garbage concerning population size, limitations or availability of resources (he could never grasp that species radiated after an extinction inpart due to resources in OTHER demes other than the one occupied by the original species) and his "new and improved" ideas of evolution and sexual reproduction, the accurate parts of which are to be found in Darwins work, the remainder in general being pure dross.As for Zephan, his attempted use of the troll-fu techique led to his over-extension, followed by a pull down and redirection of force back on himself, maybe with a little extra jing by his opponent, leading his trouncing and eventual bouncing. Simple techniques on the surface against troll-fu but subtle and effective nontheless.------------------
"Chance favors the prepared mind." L. Pasteur
Taz[This message has been edited by Dr_Tazimus_maximus, 05-01-2003]

I like this thread, of course I posted the day I joined... oh well------------------
"Science without religion is lame; religion without science is blind." - Albert Einstein

But did a better job than some of us posting for weeks.

quote:

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... if you feel there is a danger you might stoop to their tactics through frustration.

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Is that always a bad thing? I admit to having fallen off the wagon a few times... but I just couldn't help it. Maybe I'll learn better manners here.

Hey don't we all sometimes? It becomes a problem occurs when can only respond in kind.

Oh good! I was a bit worried there. I believe there's hope for me yet.

No listing of troll-fu specialists on evcforum can be complete without including the great ksc. One of the classics of modern trollism, this thread could be used as a case study on the topic. Although ksc hacked the board, deleting all his previous posts, it is possible to reconstruct his thread by the quotes contained in the responses. Interestingly, he followed almost verbatim Mr. P's outline. (BTW: it's an interesting thread in its own right.)

Wordswordsman was a bit different as he did not post under multiple IDs. In addition, when I pushed him to support his argument and presented evidence supporting evolution his defense was to claim I was an evil sorcerer and that it went against his religion to communicate with me. Shortly thereafter he bailed out of the forum.
I vaguely recall that you had a similar experience with Wordy A more apt comparison with appletoast/ten-sai/zephan/inquisitor would be Jet.

I was really hoping for more out of Inquisitor - like, that he might want to keep up the subterfuge a little longer before outright admissions of other ID's - but he totally went into troll-mode immediately. I'm really disappointed, especially after all that work - new topic, NosyNed's great posts - was done for his benefit. The best he can do is apparently call me names because I said something bad about his hero. Weak at best.Anyway, I can't see any reason to give his posts credence in the slightest. I'm done with him but probably not with trolls. I feel it's my purpose here to deal with some of the trolls so that the clearly more qualified posters don't always have to.

Hi Crashfrog!I agree with what you said about Inquisitor.Inquisitor has no class, despite sounding like a class act idiot. He/she is just another creationist who obviously doesn't understand real science. Sad what creationism can do to a mind, huh? Besides, you made an excellent point about non-scientist PJ spreading lies. Aren't all creationists, by definition, liars anyway? (duh!) Probably the reason Inquisitor got upset was because he was liar PJ himself!!Keep up the good work guys!PS. Have creationists ever made a valid point? I mean, do they even realize they are really the butt of all our jokes?

Have creationists ever made a valid point? I mean, do they even realize they are really the butt of all our jokes?i believe in creation , in fact the bible which tells us about it is the biggest seller in history and still is nu. 1, so , are these countless people all a joke to you?'Aren't all creationists, by definition, liars anyway?'as a person who believes in creation this seems a little insulting, can you please give me one reason to believe in evolution ?, just one ,make it the best reason you can think of.