So there are two theories, the psychological/schmuckenfreude theory, and the paid-troll theory.
Interesting idea from MelGross that paid trolls would be better spokespersons, and know all the PR lingo about the companies' products they're shilling for. Sometimes appl and DaHarder have sounded like they know too much about the press-release details of non-Apple stuff, but then I'm possibly reading too much in to it out of paranoia, induced partly by watching the dirty-trick industry since the days of . . . well, I don't want to say any names, or show how long I've been . . . all right, I remember the 50s and very staged senate hearings in black-and-white TV. But why would anyone bother to sabotage or distract AI, the best Apple news site, in an organized, financed way? And why would they choose blustering stooges to do the work? As Dick A says, that just makes everybody refine their perceptions and critiques of Apple products. But does it help the cause, or does it rather distract from the best understanding of what's going on in this huge technical paradigm shift? B'tosh always prods at the visceral with his jabs at Jobs, appl hits at the left-brain hardware level, as did Newtron, etc. These guys seem like bad clowns, but are they?
Enough already. The reverse-positive-effect hypothesis of Dick A is a better way to look at it.
I. too, remember the "hearings" of the 50s -- quite a few political and journalist careers were made as a result. Little else!
Sadly, that type of posturing continues to this day.
The schadenfreude reference was partially meant as a joke -- though you do see some of that on both sides of many discussions.
I don't know if there is a term for it -- it's kinda like "cutting him down to size". It's where someone envies the buying/ownership/leadership opportunities of others that are not available to himself. Through prior decisions. finances, peer pressure, company fiat, whatever -- the person cannot take advantage of a superior brand or product. What's left is to demean the brand/product to remove a little luster of the leader. You see some of that in posts, here.
Another way to examine the issue of trolling is: "follow the money" -- or who benefits from the trolling. Here are the possibilities as I see it:
1) The company posting the article and the forum -- they get lots of hits == ad $$
2) The author writing the article -- he may be trying to build (or maintain) a reputation as a knowledgeable and/or controversial tech guru. I can think of many cases where an author cites other articles by himself to support his opinions and enhance his reputation. Often, the author will participate in the forum. There were times when I felt the author was posting under a pseudonym so he could "stir the pot" or bounce ideas off himself. All of this would mean $$ to the author.
3) Vaporware. A company, plans to release a new produce against an established competitive product -- for example: any tablet manufacturer against the iPad. The company doesn't, yet, have a product to sell. It believes its product will be competitive, when available.. If they can delay a buying decision, it could result in a [later] competitive win. One way to do this (I can envision) is to hire people to seek out potential buyers and decision influencers, and to confuse them and/or reduce their influence. Potential buyers, often look to web reviews, and discussion forums such as AI to help them make a decision. If a discussion is chaotic, with lots of FUD being spread by a few trolls -- The potential buyer is confused. The confused buyer does not buy -- he waits! That's exactly what the vaporware vendor wants! The trolls, in this case, don't need to be particularly good -- just vocal and outrageous.
4) The investment Gurus. Some of these people make their $$ and reputation "predicting" market movement of stocks. Often, they will look to (google) reviews and forums to help form or support their "predictions". Some may go further than just "looking". AIR, Jim Cramer claimed he could affect the price of AAPL stock. He and Scott Moritz, will sometimes bounce supporting opinions back and forth similar to the ways some trolls work.
5) Any news is good news. If you are building a brand name or promoting a product, one of the goals is to get the name "out there" -- get people talking about it. It doesn't even need to portray the product/brand in a positive way -- people will remember that they heard about it (not what they heard). For example. you want to buy an mp3 player, and have narrowed it down to 3 products: iPod; Zune; ScanDisk. You google each. There are thousands of hits. You can't read them all... based on hit counts you see that the most popular are...
There are others, and combinations/permutations of the above -- sometimes, these stories get picked up by the mainstream press.
As far as AI is concerned. I do believe that AI publishes articles to attract readers -- That's their job!
Sometimes, the articles are slanted, sometimes biased! Sometimes they could use a little more fact checking. Some of that goes with the territory -- you sacrifice things to bring the discussion to the table, in a timely way.
I do not believe that AI is paying trolls to add hits to the articles -- though, it seems that AI thinks (as do I) that a little trolling adds spice to the discussion.
I follow a number of sites with articles/forums on topics that interest me -- or just for fun. I post to a few of them.
Currently (for the past year, or so) AI is best of breed of sites discussing Apple and their products.
I would like to see AI do a somewhat better job of troll control.
the reason for this is appl is now gone from the site with an admin service in vBulletin called Tacky Goes To Coventry. It makes him invisible but it doesn?t block or delete his account, in and of itself. The admins can see him and it?s possible he is still posting without realizing that his posts are no longer showing up to any normal users or those not logged in at all.
B
These guys need to RTFM.
"Note:
If you change this option, you need to rebuild thread and then forum information in Maintenance > Update Counters."
I. too, remember the "hearings" of the 50s -- quite a few political and journalist careers were made as a result. Little else!
Sadly, that type of posturing continues to this day.
( . . . . )
As far as AI is concerned. I do believe that AI publishes articles to attract readers -- That's their job!
Sometimes, the articles are slanted, sometimes biased! Sometimes they could use a little more fact checking. Some of that goes with the territory -- you sacrifice things to bring the discussion to the table, in a timely way.
I do not believe that AI is paying trolls to add hits to the articles -- though, it seems that AI thinks (as do I) that a little trolling adds spice to the discussion.
I follow a number of sites with articles/forums on topics that interest me -- or just for fun. I post to a few of them.
Currently (for the past year, or so) AI is best of breed of sites discussing Apple and their products.
L would like top see AI do a somewhat better job of troll control.
Hope I wasn't giving the impression that I think AI is paying trolls to keep things moving. That never crossed my mind. Other 'sock-puppet masters,' as hiro has called them, have occurred to me, but not AI, certainly.
I would be glad to participate in troll control -- good phrase -- by doing some kind of downrating when it becomes obvious.
Thanks for your usual wide and detailed perspective. I'm going to give up on the hypothesis that the trolls are doing a paid job, since there's no way to prove anything, obviously. The suggestion is out there, others have also made it, and that's enough for me. It's also a relief that the two recent repeat offenders are gone for now. I notice that responding to them does bring out the occasional good insight, but overall, the cost/benefit ratio is not that great. There is enough low-level narrow-mindedness and crankiness that doesn't fit the troll pattern to respond to. On the other hand, I have seen threads which seem a little tame because everybody is being too agreeable, so I know what you're saying about spicing up the conversation.
I certainly am disappointed in seeing this tablet released with Windows 7 instead of webOS (even though they say the webOS one is coming.) Last year at this time I wouldn't have been, but I've definitely changed my mind.
Hope I wasn't giving the impression that I think AI is paying trolls to keep things moving. That never crossed my mind. Other 'sock-puppet masters,' as hiro has called them, have occurred to me, but not AI, certainly.
I would be glad to participate in troll control -- good phrase -- by doing some kind of downrating when it becomes obvious.
Thanks for your usual wide and detailed perspective. I'm going to give up on the hypothesis that the trolls are doing a paid job, since there's no way to prove anything, obviously. The suggestion is out there, others have also made it, and that's enough for me. It's also a relief that the two recent repeat offenders are gone for now. I notice that responding to them does bring out the occasional good insight, but overall, the cost/benefit ratio is not that great. There is enough low-level narrow-mindedness and crankiness that doesn't fit the troll pattern to respond to. On the other hand, I have seen threads which seem a little tame because everybody is being too agreeable, so I know what you're saying about spicing up the conversation.
Nah! You didn't give the impresseion that AI is paying the trolls. I was trying to think out loud about a subject that others have touched upon. As you say, it is not a very good cost/benefit proposition.
More likely, it is a group of juveniles -- making the 21st century equivalent of prank calls.
I think I like the idea of down rating trolls. I've seen and used the thumbs up/down on other forums -- it is a convenient way of rating a post and poster without posting a response...
I think something can/should be done to control the trolls.
That said... Some of the guys I hang with, are going out Hallowe'en and turn over a few outhouses... Interested?
Hope I wasn't giving the impression that I think AI is paying trolls to keep things moving. That never crossed my mind. Other 'sock-puppet masters,' as hiro has called them, have occurred to me, but not AI, certainly.
I'm not of the opinion the trolls were paid either, but I certainly do think they are doing it as a mission, not mere prankdom. Keeping up pranks for as long as the latest series of related trolls has run take way too much energy to be a simple prankster. There is most definitely a more deeply motivated mission providing the endurance. The fact they are getting a reverse result from what their mission objective may be is more a mater of the execution style being really poor, not the lack of a mission.
And one last thing on the Sock-Puppet master, I think most of the trolls have actually been one single human being, with a whole bunch of aliases -- the single alias owner being master of his Sock-Puppets. I don't have access to log files or anything like that so it is pure speculation based on patterns and catch phrases over the lifespan of the individual eventually banned aliases.
I'm not of the opinion the trolls were paid either, but I certainly do think they are doing it as a mission, not mere prankdom. Keeping up pranks for as long as the latest series of related trolls has run take way too much energy to be a simple prankster. There is most definitely a more deeply motivated mission providing the endurance. The fact they are getting a reverse result from what their mission objective may be is more a mater of the execution style being really poor, not the lack of a mission.
And one last thing on the Sock-Puppet master, I think most of the trolls have actually been one single human being, with a whole bunch of aliases -- the single alias owner being master of his Sock-Puppets. I don't have access to log files or anything like that so it is pure speculation based on patterns and catch phrases over the lifespan of the individual eventually banned aliases.
So, an organized, or at least goal-oriented, campaign against Apple, out of a deeply motivated mission. That I can see, but it has remarkable staying power. I wasn't around when Tekstud merged into Newtron, but I did see Newtron become appl. Blackintosh, though, has too quirky a style to be anybody else I've seen. But like I say, haven't been around that long.
I started following the site when the rumours about an Apple tablet got serious late last year, and I was surprised to see the level of perverse contrariness that you all had to put up with, probably going way back. Neither Blackintosh, Newtron nor appl seem to have day jobs. Curious. Oh, but I'm swearing off the paid-troll hypothesis . . . .
So, an organized, or at least goal-oriented, campaign against Apple, out of a deeply motivated mission. That I can see, but it has remarkable staying power. I wasn't around when Tekstud merged into Newtron, but I did see Newtron become appl. Blackintosh, though, has too quirky a style to be anybody else I've seen. But like I say, haven't been around that long.
I started following the site when the rumours about an Apple tablet got serious late last year, and I was surprised to see the level of perverse contrariness that you all had to put up with, probably going way back. Neither Blackintosh, Newtron nor appl seem to have day jobs. Curious. Oh, but I'm swearing off the paid-troll hypothesis . . . .
To me I think it's just some individuals with various challenges, even though any competitor would love to have them under their employ.
It's a forum, so people don't reply to individual posts, so you get less individual attention.
Sometimes trolls just do it so that the posts are directed to them personally.
LOL I meant "posters do not always reply to individual posts in a way that certain attention-seeking posters may desire"... That is, the conversation is multi-directional, unlike online chat or Facebook, where a user's posts are replied to and responded to in a more direct fashion.
I haven't seen an HP press release stating they are attacking the iPod. But taking on the iPad this will fail in a big way. Protecting some of their Key Account customers it might have a reason to exist. But still: WIndows and stylus does not sound like a success story in the making to me.
Comments
So there are two theories, the psychological/schmuckenfreude theory, and the paid-troll theory.
Interesting idea from MelGross that paid trolls would be better spokespersons, and know all the PR lingo about the companies' products they're shilling for. Sometimes appl and DaHarder have sounded like they know too much about the press-release details of non-Apple stuff, but then I'm possibly reading too much in to it out of paranoia, induced partly by watching the dirty-trick industry since the days of . . . well, I don't want to say any names, or show how long I've been . . . all right, I remember the 50s and very staged senate hearings in black-and-white TV. But why would anyone bother to sabotage or distract AI, the best Apple news site, in an organized, financed way? And why would they choose blustering stooges to do the work? As Dick A says, that just makes everybody refine their perceptions and critiques of Apple products. But does it help the cause, or does it rather distract from the best understanding of what's going on in this huge technical paradigm shift? B'tosh always prods at the visceral with his jabs at Jobs, appl hits at the left-brain hardware level, as did Newtron, etc. These guys seem like bad clowns, but are they?
Enough already. The reverse-positive-effect hypothesis of Dick A is a better way to look at it.
I. too, remember the "hearings" of the 50s -- quite a few political and journalist careers were made as a result. Little else!
Sadly, that type of posturing continues to this day.
The schadenfreude reference was partially meant as a joke -- though you do see some of that on both sides of many discussions.
I don't know if there is a term for it -- it's kinda like "cutting him down to size". It's where someone envies the buying/ownership/leadership opportunities of others that are not available to himself. Through prior decisions. finances, peer pressure, company fiat, whatever -- the person cannot take advantage of a superior brand or product. What's left is to demean the brand/product to remove a little luster of the leader. You see some of that in posts, here.
Another way to examine the issue of trolling is: "follow the money" -- or who benefits from the trolling. Here are the possibilities as I see it:
1) The company posting the article and the forum -- they get lots of hits == ad $$
2) The author writing the article -- he may be trying to build (or maintain) a reputation as a knowledgeable and/or controversial tech guru. I can think of many cases where an author cites other articles by himself to support his opinions and enhance his reputation. Often, the author will participate in the forum. There were times when I felt the author was posting under a pseudonym so he could "stir the pot" or bounce ideas off himself. All of this would mean $$ to the author.
3) Vaporware. A company, plans to release a new produce against an established competitive product -- for example: any tablet manufacturer against the iPad. The company doesn't, yet, have a product to sell. It believes its product will be competitive, when available.. If they can delay a buying decision, it could result in a [later] competitive win. One way to do this (I can envision) is to hire people to seek out potential buyers and decision influencers, and to confuse them and/or reduce their influence. Potential buyers, often look to web reviews, and discussion forums such as AI to help them make a decision. If a discussion is chaotic, with lots of FUD being spread by a few trolls -- The potential buyer is confused. The confused buyer does not buy -- he waits! That's exactly what the vaporware vendor wants! The trolls, in this case, don't need to be particularly good -- just vocal and outrageous.
4) The investment Gurus. Some of these people make their $$ and reputation "predicting" market movement of stocks. Often, they will look to (google) reviews and forums to help form or support their "predictions". Some may go further than just "looking". AIR, Jim Cramer claimed he could affect the price of AAPL stock. He and Scott Moritz, will sometimes bounce supporting opinions back and forth similar to the ways some trolls work.
5) Any news is good news. If you are building a brand name or promoting a product, one of the goals is to get the name "out there" -- get people talking about it. It doesn't even need to portray the product/brand in a positive way -- people will remember that they heard about it (not what they heard). For example. you want to buy an mp3 player, and have narrowed it down to 3 products: iPod; Zune; ScanDisk. You google each. There are thousands of hits. You can't read them all... based on hit counts you see that the most popular are...
There are others, and combinations/permutations of the above -- sometimes, these stories get picked up by the mainstream press.
As far as AI is concerned. I do believe that AI publishes articles to attract readers -- That's their job!
Sometimes, the articles are slanted, sometimes biased! Sometimes they could use a little more fact checking. Some of that goes with the territory -- you sacrifice things to bring the discussion to the table, in a timely way.
I do not believe that AI is paying trolls to add hits to the articles -- though, it seems that AI thinks (as do I) that a little trolling adds spice to the discussion.
I follow a number of sites with articles/forums on topics that interest me -- or just for fun. I post to a few of them.
Currently (for the past year, or so) AI is best of breed of sites discussing Apple and their products.
I would like to see AI do a somewhat better job of troll control.
.
the reason for this is appl is now gone from the site with an admin service in vBulletin called Tacky Goes To Coventry. It makes him invisible but it doesn?t block or delete his account, in and of itself. The admins can see him and it?s possible he is still posting without realizing that his posts are no longer showing up to any normal users or those not logged in at all.
B
These guys need to RTFM.
"Note:
If you change this option, you need to rebuild thread and then forum information in Maintenance > Update Counters."
I. too, remember the "hearings" of the 50s -- quite a few political and journalist careers were made as a result. Little else!
Sadly, that type of posturing continues to this day.
( . . . . )
As far as AI is concerned. I do believe that AI publishes articles to attract readers -- That's their job!
Sometimes, the articles are slanted, sometimes biased! Sometimes they could use a little more fact checking. Some of that goes with the territory -- you sacrifice things to bring the discussion to the table, in a timely way.
I do not believe that AI is paying trolls to add hits to the articles -- though, it seems that AI thinks (as do I) that a little trolling adds spice to the discussion.
I follow a number of sites with articles/forums on topics that interest me -- or just for fun. I post to a few of them.
Currently (for the past year, or so) AI is best of breed of sites discussing Apple and their products.
L would like top see AI do a somewhat better job of troll control.
Hope I wasn't giving the impression that I think AI is paying trolls to keep things moving. That never crossed my mind. Other 'sock-puppet masters,' as hiro has called them, have occurred to me, but not AI, certainly.
I would be glad to participate in troll control -- good phrase -- by doing some kind of downrating when it becomes obvious.
Thanks for your usual wide and detailed perspective. I'm going to give up on the hypothesis that the trolls are doing a paid job, since there's no way to prove anything, obviously. The suggestion is out there, others have also made it, and that's enough for me. It's also a relief that the two recent repeat offenders are gone for now. I notice that responding to them does bring out the occasional good insight, but overall, the cost/benefit ratio is not that great. There is enough low-level narrow-mindedness and crankiness that doesn't fit the troll pattern to respond to. On the other hand, I have seen threads which seem a little tame because everybody is being too agreeable, so I know what you're saying about spicing up the conversation.
If these guys are getting paid, as many suspect, what does that say about the entity that is paying them?
I REALLY doubt anyone's paying people to troll forums like these
Hope I wasn't giving the impression that I think AI is paying trolls to keep things moving. That never crossed my mind. Other 'sock-puppet masters,' as hiro has called them, have occurred to me, but not AI, certainly.
I would be glad to participate in troll control -- good phrase -- by doing some kind of downrating when it becomes obvious.
Thanks for your usual wide and detailed perspective. I'm going to give up on the hypothesis that the trolls are doing a paid job, since there's no way to prove anything, obviously. The suggestion is out there, others have also made it, and that's enough for me. It's also a relief that the two recent repeat offenders are gone for now. I notice that responding to them does bring out the occasional good insight, but overall, the cost/benefit ratio is not that great. There is enough low-level narrow-mindedness and crankiness that doesn't fit the troll pattern to respond to. On the other hand, I have seen threads which seem a little tame because everybody is being too agreeable, so I know what you're saying about spicing up the conversation.
Nah! You didn't give the impresseion that AI is paying the trolls. I was trying to think out loud about a subject that others have touched upon. As you say, it is not a very good cost/benefit proposition.
More likely, it is a group of juveniles -- making the 21st century equivalent of prank calls.
I think I like the idea of down rating trolls. I've seen and used the thumbs up/down on other forums -- it is a convenient way of rating a post and poster without posting a response...
I think something can/should be done to control the trolls.
That said... Some of the guys I hang with, are going out Hallowe'en and turn over a few outhouses... Interested?
.
Hope I wasn't giving the impression that I think AI is paying trolls to keep things moving. That never crossed my mind. Other 'sock-puppet masters,' as hiro has called them, have occurred to me, but not AI, certainly.
I'm not of the opinion the trolls were paid either, but I certainly do think they are doing it as a mission, not mere prankdom. Keeping up pranks for as long as the latest series of related trolls has run take way too much energy to be a simple prankster. There is most definitely a more deeply motivated mission providing the endurance. The fact they are getting a reverse result from what their mission objective may be is more a mater of the execution style being really poor, not the lack of a mission.
And one last thing on the Sock-Puppet master, I think most of the trolls have actually been one single human being, with a whole bunch of aliases -- the single alias owner being master of his Sock-Puppets. I don't have access to log files or anything like that so it is pure speculation based on patterns and catch phrases over the lifespan of the individual eventually banned aliases.
I'm not of the opinion the trolls were paid either, but I certainly do think they are doing it as a mission, not mere prankdom. Keeping up pranks for as long as the latest series of related trolls has run take way too much energy to be a simple prankster. There is most definitely a more deeply motivated mission providing the endurance. The fact they are getting a reverse result from what their mission objective may be is more a mater of the execution style being really poor, not the lack of a mission.
And one last thing on the Sock-Puppet master, I think most of the trolls have actually been one single human being, with a whole bunch of aliases -- the single alias owner being master of his Sock-Puppets. I don't have access to log files or anything like that so it is pure speculation based on patterns and catch phrases over the lifespan of the individual eventually banned aliases.
So, an organized, or at least goal-oriented, campaign against Apple, out of a deeply motivated mission. That I can see, but it has remarkable staying power. I wasn't around when Tekstud merged into Newtron, but I did see Newtron become appl. Blackintosh, though, has too quirky a style to be anybody else I've seen. But like I say, haven't been around that long.
I started following the site when the rumours about an Apple tablet got serious late last year, and I was surprised to see the level of perverse contrariness that you all had to put up with, probably going way back. Neither Blackintosh, Newtron nor appl seem to have day jobs. Curious. Oh, but I'm swearing off the paid-troll hypothesis . . . .
So, an organized, or at least goal-oriented, campaign against Apple, out of a deeply motivated mission. That I can see, but it has remarkable staying power. I wasn't around when Tekstud merged into Newtron, but I did see Newtron become appl. Blackintosh, though, has too quirky a style to be anybody else I've seen. But like I say, haven't been around that long.
I started following the site when the rumours about an Apple tablet got serious late last year, and I was surprised to see the level of perverse contrariness that you all had to put up with, probably going way back. Neither Blackintosh, Newtron nor appl seem to have day jobs. Curious. Oh, but I'm swearing off the paid-troll hypothesis . . . .
To me I think it's just some individuals with various challenges, even though any competitor would love to have them under their employ.
It's a forum, so people don't reply to individual posts, so you get less individual attention.
Sometimes trolls just do it so that the posts are directed to them personally.
To me I think it's just some individuals with various challenges, even though any competitor would love to have them under their employ.
It's a forum, so people don't reply to individual posts, so you get less individual attention.
Sometimes trolls just do it so that the posts are directed to them personally.
This is an angle I hadn't thought of. I'll have to ponder that one.
To me I think it's just some individuals with various challenges, even though any competitor would love to have them under their employ.
It's a forum, so people don't reply to individual posts, so you get less individual attention.
Sometimes trolls just do it so that the posts are directed to them personally.
We don't reply to individual posts?
We don't reply to individual posts?
LOL I meant "posters do not always reply to individual posts in a way that certain attention-seeking posters may desire"... That is, the conversation is multi-directional, unlike online chat or Facebook, where a user's posts are replied to and responded to in a more direct fashion.
I haven't seen an HP press release stating they are attacking the iPod. But taking on the iPad this will fail in a big way. Protecting some of their Key Account customers it might have a reason to exist. But still: WIndows and stylus does not sound like a success story in the making to me.