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> mostly timeless Which is kind of crazy in a small way, right? These techniques could have applied even back in the late 90’s early 00’s. They’re effectively

> mostly timeless Which is kind of crazy in a small way, right? These techniques could have applied even back in the late 90’s early 00’s. They’re effectively just mechanisms for warping a forum, which is to perhaps claim that forums are a withered technology, perhaps without enough lateral thinking.

readthenotes1 4y ago
I bet we'd have seen a bunch of this in Athens back in the day...
sroussey 4y ago
Having run a forum hosting service back then, I can tell you that these things were applied. The more interesting post (considering it talks about both sides) would include the counter-measures that moderators and platform providers do. Although, truth be told, obscurity of these things was (and is) very effective on most.
- sroussey 4y ago
  I’ll talk about one: assume that there are a number of agitators, but they are still a small minority inside a forum. What we would do if things were getting out of hand, is make the forum require a login. At this point, we know who is looking at the forum, and therefore we could present different views of content to different people for the same forum. (Rarely we would do this with a supercookie). We went ahead and grouped all the agitators together, so that they would be able to communicate with each other, and not think that their posts were deleted. However, the main forum members would never see these messages or replies by these people, and the order of the messages would reflect that. Much better than sliding. But if they gained access under a different name, they would realize. This obscurity of the practice was important. Nothing quiets an agitator more than silence from that they are trying to agitate.
  - walterbell 4y ago
    > they would be able to communicate with each other, and not think that their posts were deleted. However, the main forum members would never see these messages or replies by these people Golden Rule of Trollception.
anigbrowl 4y ago
Schopenhauer wrote a bitter sarcastic book on logical fallacies nearly 2 centuries ago which was (probably) meant as a critique of his intellectual rivals but has enjoyed a revival as an early guide to trolling. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Art_of_Being_Right https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Art_of_Being_Right

readthenotes1 4y ago

I bet we'd have seen a bunch of this in Athens back in the day...

sroussey 4y ago

Having run a forum hosting service back then, I can tell you that these things were applied. The more interesting post (considering it talks about both sides) would include the counter-measures that moderators and platform providers do. Although, truth be told, obscurity of these things was (and is) very effective on most.

sroussey 4y ago
I’ll talk about one: assume that there are a number of agitators, but they are still a small minority inside a forum. What we would do if things were getting out of hand, is make the forum require a login. At this point, we know who is looking at the forum, and therefore we could present different views of content to different people for the same forum. (Rarely we would do this with a supercookie). We went ahead and grouped all the agitators together, so that they would be able to communicate with each other, and not think that their posts were deleted. However, the main forum members would never see these messages or replies by these people, and the order of the messages would reflect that. Much better than sliding. But if they gained access under a different name, they would realize. This obscurity of the practice was important. Nothing quiets an agitator more than silence from that they are trying to agitate.
- walterbell 4y ago
  > they would be able to communicate with each other, and not think that their posts were deleted. However, the main forum members would never see these messages or replies by these people Golden Rule of Trollception.

anigbrowl 4y ago

Schopenhauer wrote a bitter sarcastic book on logical fallacies nearly 2 centuries ago which was (probably) meant as a critique of his intellectual rivals but has enjoyed a revival as an early guide to trolling. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Art_of_Being_Right https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Art_of_Being_Right