Section 4: Newsgroup Selection

Choice of newsgroup is as important as the subject, tone and structure of the troll. You want to appeal to each group you X-post into to ensure responses from each group. A well delivered troll will anticipate what those responses will be and thus ensure that contradictions will arise amongst the different groups that you are setting up. BAD: Posting "USA Sucks" to alt.nuke.the.USA, alt.usa-sucks, aus.flame.usa. This is totally on-topic and obvious. A truly useless troll. AVERAGE: Posting "God Doesn't Exist" to all the alt.religion newsgroups. Here you are being too obvious. People recognise this sort of trouble making and have usually learned not to respond to it. However, if your troll is well written you can actually entrap a lot of newbies.

This, if executed correctly, can be exploited to cause great offence to those more experienced troll avoiders on the groups you are attacking. Go for it!

GOOD: posting an article that appears relevant to every group but with no connection between those groups other than the fact that you've just trolled them.
The best trolls go out to an average of around eight or nine newsgroups. This will stop them from becoming spam as it's not quite enough to be a real problem. However, to get by on so few groups you have to include a couple of popular ones in the list.

When posting to say seven groups you should try to break down your theme into seven areas - each of which will be of specific interest to just one of those groups.

You then write an eight paragraph troll with a paragraph for each group and a spare one for yourself with which to lob in a gratuitous insult to everyone who was dumb enough to read your troll.

It is a matter of choice whether you choose newsgroups before or after writing the troll.

Some experts claim that newsgroup selection is the key to successful trolling and should be done first, others will write general trolls and then apply the standard Perl script that trollers use for Automatic Random Newsgroup Selection.

Section 5: Know Your Audience

Remember that you have two audiences. The people who are going to get the maximum enjoyment out of your post are other trollers. You need to keep in contact with them through both your troll itself and the way you direct its effect.

It is trollers that you are trying to entertain so be creative - trollers don't just want a laugh from you they want to see good trolls so that they can also learn how to improve their own in the never ending search for the perfect troll.

The other audience is of course the little people in those newsgroups that your are attacking. Get to know them. Every newsgroup has its smartarse who will expose your troll if given half a chance

Research your targets and learn what their arguments are. Then avoid those arguments like the plague.

Drag them off-topic - the further off-topic the better. Remember, you are trying to waste their time.

Never take sides - remember that your goal is not to win an argument, rather it is to provoke a futile one that runs forever.

If, for example you were attacking Fast Food then you should also X-post to Healthy Eating groups, Environmental Protection Groups, Animal Rights Groups etc...

You want to try to ensure that you have the broadest possible range of opinions as this is the easiest way to sow confusion.

The more confusion the less the likelihood of your troll being exposed for what it is.

It can also be shown that the inclusion of just one totally off-topic newsgroup can have dramatic effects.

The list above is taken from a genuine troll which also included an Artificial Intelligence group, the result of which was to draw Computer Guru Professor Marvin Minsky into a flamewar concerning Ronald McDonald's exploitation of the disabled - an all-time classic piece of trolling - written by a practising veggie.

Section 6: Following-Up

"Even if this is true......"

That represents the perfect response to any troll. The mark of a gullible lunatic that will almost certainly believe anything you tell them. A total group embarrassment. Award yourself a Troll Gold Star every time you get one!

Other good responses include, but are not limited to....

"Although this is on-topic....."

"I disagree...."

"Yes, but....."

"Can you provide a source for this...."

Try not to follow-up to your own troll. The troll itself quickly becomes forgotten in the chaos and if you just sit back you can avoid being blamed for causing it.

Remember, if you do follow up you are talking to an idiot. Treat them with the ill-respect they deserve.

You should also learn to recognise follow-ups from your fellow trollers. Sometimes an average troll can be elevated into majestic proportions when several trollers spontaneously join forces via the medium of the follow up troll.

Ignore cries of wasted bandwidth! This is pure drivel that will always be posted by the anti-troll lobby.

These jerks fail to understand that trolls are the best way to drive people off the internet thus making available multi-mbs for the rest of us to download our porn.