Forum Trolling
This is meant to be a quick overview of how to effectively, legally troll someone over the internet, in the form of debate. Note that these in constructions are for quick, blatant trolling--If you want to really get under an entire community's skin, try PsyOps.
- DO NOT USE CAPS LOCK, EXCEPT IN A CONDESCENDING MANNER TO MOCK THEIR USE OF CAPS LOCK.
- Always strive to use perfect (or nearly perfect) grammar and spelling.
- Do not directly insult them or appear angry, as this gives them the impression that they're gaining ground. (Note that a skilled troll can sometimes use this to their advantage with a sort of bait-and-switch maneuver.)
While the ground rules are important, here are a few simple ways to make yourself seem more intelligent.
- Use '--' and ';' correctly, so as to make yourself seem more intelligent.
- Base trolls on actual situations; Use facts to build up a lie.
- To rebut an argument, break their post down into quotes, and rebut them sentence-by-sentence.
- . Use lists, ASCII diagrams, images (if allowed), etc to illustrate your point
- Point out every logical fallacy you can find in their argument (e.g. circular logic, naturalistic fallacy). A list of logical fallacies can be found in {{WK|List_of_logical_fallacies|Wikipedia}}
- Point out the other person's bad grammar and/or spelling in a condescending manner at the end of your post.
- Use a thesaurus to find big words to use in your sentences, so it looks like you have a larger vocabulary and are therefore more intelligent.
- Cite your sources, preferably in MLA format, at the bottom of your posts. You may also try using Chicago style citations to backup individual statements.
The longer you debate, the more opportunities will become available to you. Try to take advantage of all of these, as it will cause your opponent to RAAAAAAAGE.
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No doubt your opponent will have 'moved the goalposts' (another logical fallacy, note this as well), and as a result there may be contradictions between their posts. Point out these contradictions.
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If they resort to using abstract metaphors, apply these metaphors to something else, so as to make both the metaphor and the argument behind the metaphor seem useless.
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EXAMPLE: "The universe is like a book, and God is like an author" -> "Who's the editor? How do we know that Yehova and the universe are not the book and Thor is the author? And who the fuck published this bullsh*t?"
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Fragment your sentences. A moderate amount. To emphasize an argument or point.
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Use quotes--lots of quotes. Preferably from famous people. Better yet, quote-mine anyone that they quote or cite for something that aids your argument.
It is inevitable that, eventually, you will say/do something stupid. Here are some things that you should avoid, and ways to avoid them.
- Increasingly long, drawn-out discussions on theoreticals. This becomes especially common when debating theists, as you'll somehow end up arguing about things within Christianity/Islam/etc, as opposed to whether or not Christianity/Islam/etc (or whatever religion/philosophy you're debating against) is actually true. In these instances, when in doubt, say "prove it".
- If you find yourself lacking understanding of the subject (or part of the subject), {{WK||wiki}} it.
- If you run out of material or can't think, use Google to find other people who have argued on the same subject, and steal their arguments shamelessly. Just make sure they don't contradict anything that you've said. Now, taking this advice to heart, TROLL! DO IT FGT!
Here is a quick list of some of the best places on the internet to troll.
This section includes any site where the main focus is discussion, including imageboards. http://forums.warriorcats.com/eve This is a great place to troll. The reactions from the kids will be unforgettable.
This website is dedicated to a great game series, but is kept up by a bunch of people who think they're all 1337 and b0ss. The mods there are an example of thinking to highly of yourself. The mods are also enemies to the lulz (at least 91% of the time.) Troll here if you are an expert or grand master troll, or you could do a (PLANNED!!) invasion.
A bunch of 15-25 year old nerds and weirdos who like to have obsessive discussions on a childrens show that ended 3 years ago. The forum is broken and has a lot of glitches, and the Admin and most of the mods are never around, so it is considered an easy forum to troll for beginners.
This site is full of pseudo-intellectual 16 year old Marxists, who advocate violent revolution and RAAAAAAAAAGE at sexism, and yet spend all their time talking about porn and /b/ in ChitChat, and who work at McDonalds. Trolling is easy: they hate Stalinism, post about him and Pol Pot for instant lulz. Due to recent drama, the site now requires members to have their first ten posts moderated. In order to amass these posts quickly, just post in agreement with someone else, or google up some shit on Marxism.
The Stormfront Forum is full of middle-aged rednecks who got fired from their construction jobs (for being lazier than spics), and so engage in a white-power-circle-jerk while rambling about Jews, the Illuminati, Satanists, Communists, and Jews. For bonus points, sign up for an account on revleft and stormfront, and incite threads where they talk about each other. When done correctly, this ends up becoming an all out shitfest between the two forums, with people on both sides of the divide ridiculing every post in the opposite forum. N.B. They monitor posts until one has two rep points, ten posts, and one has waited ten days for account confirmation. Just google shit on White Nationalists and skin-heads and post it up to gain the points.
Full of faggots who discovered the site through 4chan, and who think they are part of some {{ED|Angst|special, unique}} cultural movement. This makes them much more easy to troll than any other chan. To troll, initiate OS flame wars, stupid attacks against Christians, stupid attacks against atheists, etc. It may also be valuable to note that SysOp (Kimmo Alm) monitors every post made.
Teen support forum created by a teenager, David. It's rapidly grown more and more overrun with trolls, however it remains to have a moderation team created by previous members, and a group of Support Leaders who answer eHelps, or emergency help requests from members on the site with a problem they cannot resolve. Spamming and troll posts are removed soon after posted. Previously Banned Members are rebanned (somebody posted here on the post that I am editing that we have no IP banning--this is not true. The mods can find IP addresses and ban people based on those; I've seen it happen many a time, especially for an incredibly insistent member, Anti Christ, who keeps coming back.) and we generally uphold a level of professionalism while questions are asked. The power distribution is as follows: The Admin, The Oversight Board (randomly chosen to see over moderator actions every week), the Moderation team, the Support Leaders, both Peer, as I described before, and Tech, who help fix up the technical issues on the site, the members, the warned members, and the banned members at the bottom. LiveWire is a hive of emo, fail, pedophilia, horniness, and stupidity, which makes it ripe for trolling. LOL, just kidding, we're all faggots who need a cock up our anus at all times.
These guys worship a man because he wrote a book that said the earth was flat. You will need to troll this place with some proficiency, as the ratio of trolls to Flat Earthers is high. Trolling Tom Bishop, however, brings great justice, and epic lulz, and it can't be done enough.
A forum full of "skeptics". If you're tired of arguing against the religious, try trolling the atheists for awhile. Rage very easy to stoke. They hate the religious. Also, you can try out all your best 9/11-Truther arguments for extra lulz.
A bunch of raging RAER SELDA obsessed faggots who attempt to troll each other. The moderators are very corrupt in the sense that they each have their own belief of what the rules are, making trolling a bit of a challenge, but that much more rewarding.
Any site filled with 15 year old fags who have 200 'friends', and post themselves half-nude.
Site is child's play. Just call people names, create a fake account to troll others, etc. Very simple to exploit users in any form of trolling. This is also a simpler way to troll a celebrity who has an account.
Like Myspace, this site is fucking childs play. Filled to capacity with camwhores/attention whores, MAN THE HARPOONS size whales, and morons, it is almost too easy to send anyone into a frenzy. It is best to use psyop tactics to turn everyone in the room against the host. Bonus points if the room has over 9000 people in it.
Slightly more mature, and therefore slightly more difficult to troll. Try going into polarized groups (AANR, I bet I can find 1,000,000 christians, Ultimate Muslim Warriors, etc), and posting inflammatory material. Flame wars over politics and religion start very easily.
This site is a breeding ground for great trolls, it's full to the brim with young teenagers who flip out if people criticize the games they love or any aspect of the site. There are already many trolls present who take great pleasure in winding up the little brats. Console warz and making criticisms of staff members seem to have a very potent effect.
A site filled with angsty, retarded 16 year old camwhores. A breeding ground for trolls. Religion, especially, is bound to create shouting matches in video and comment form, between dozens of idiots.
IRC is inherently filled with drama, paradoxically making trolling both more easy and more difficult.
If OS flamewars are your thing, try joining #linux, #ubuntu, #suse, etc, on efnet, rizon, and any other large irc networks.
Try altrock channels on efnet, where petty arguments over which band is better may arise.