zlacker

Like graffiti, trolling can be impressive when it's done especially well. My favorite troll of all time is the guy from comp.compression last August:

http://groups.google.com/group/comp.compression/browse_threa...

followed by the famous "Is Your Son a Computer Hacker?" troll from adequacy.org:

http://adequacy.org/public/stories/2001.12.2.42056.2147.html

>>dfrank+(OP)
reminds me of the physicist who wrote a fake post-modernist paper and submitted it to a journal and got it published.

>>curi+8
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_Affair

>>dfrank+(OP)
The "Commie Day Care" Adequacy troll was far superior, imho. And it was all much better when it was at k5.

>>curi+8
He was doing more than trolling though. That was an experiment to show how low their filters were set.

>>boredg+f
I wasn't impressed by that one. The Hacker troll strikes a nerve because it's frightening. It's all too easy to imagine somebody really being that stupid, and too easy to imagine them becoming influential. The Daycare troll reads like just another ineffectual wingnut.

>>curi+8
I'm not sure I'd regard the Sokal affair as trolling. It's hardly being an asshole, unless you consider exposing idiots being an ass, and it's hardly fishing for controversy, unless exposing any kind of potentially controversial stuff is trolling (was Watergate trolling?).

>>simen+91
yeah i know. what pg said as well. still reminded me.

>>dfrank+H
Fair enough (hence the upvote), but I judge trolls in part by the quality of the fish they catch. Obviously with Adequacy, this becomes an interesting game. But the "Kid's a Hacker" was awash with fanboys trying to out-"get it" all over each other. At least Commie Day Care's second-level trolls were _genuine_.

>>dfrank+e
Also, a couple of French TV show hosts pulled the same trick with physics instead of postmodernism.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bogdanov_Affair

>>simen+91
No, watergate was not trolling, because it was not a forum game. Watergate was a scam, it was also an accident (getting rather busted).

Trolling is a scam performed for the purposes of a humorous prank on a discussion board.

Watergate was a scam to pervert the course of democratic government.

>>dfrank+(OP)
HAHAHA! I know the adequacy.org one. That had me in stitches for weeks.