Internet troll

In Internet terminology, a troll is a person who posts inflammatory messages on the internet, such as on online discussion forums, to disrupt discussion or to upset its participants. "Troll" can also mean the inflammatory message itself posted by a troll or be a verb meaning to post such messages. "Trolling" (the gerund) is also commonly used to describe the activity.

Etymology

The contemporary use of the term first appeared on Usenet groups in the late 1980s. It is widely thought to be a contraction of the phrase "trolling for suckers", itself derived from the sport fishing technique of trolling. The latter can be compared with trawling, of which it is a near homophone. The word likely gained currency because of its apt second meaning, drawn from the "trolls", which are portrayed in Scandinavian folklore, and children's tales, as often ugly, obnoxious creatures that are bent on wickedness and mischief. The image of the troll under the bridge in the "Three Billy Goats Gruff" emphasizes the trolls' dislike of outsiders within its physical environment, particularly those who intend to graze in its domain.

Vicious Circles

Users may have various motives for trolling. A common factor for many is the desire to draw attention to the troll. Inflammatory, sarcastic, disruptive or humorous content is posted, meant to draw other users into engaging the troll in a fruitless confrontation. The more attention the troll's activities draw from users, the more persistent the troll's behavior in the forum. This gives rise to the often repeated protocol in internet culture: "Do not feed the trolls." Often, a person will post a sincere message about which they are emotionally sensitive. Skillful trolls know that an easy way to upset them is to disingenuously claim that the person is a "troll". On other occasions, a person may not instantly understand, or fit into the social norms of a forum where most users have similar characteristics. As a result, their acting just slightly out of the norm (often unintentionally, and for legitimate reasons) garners them the label "troll". It can sometimes be difficult to distinguish between a user who is merely unfamiliar with the social protocols of a forum, and a user who is intentionally trolling; unfortunately, many users react aggressively on a first impression to a perceived troll, which sometimes leads disgruntled newbies to become legitimate trolls.

Troll Culture

This culture seems to have gone beyond the vague Scandinavian mythological identification, and includes some elements of Celtic culture, including a sort of status for the more effective poets and rhetoricians among them. The "Wikipedia red faction" was a notable group of this sort, employing largely Marxist rhetoric. The Anarchopedia similarly employs some anarchist rhetoric, and seems to actively encourage self-identification and factional expression among trolls. To a lesser degree, so has consumerium. The long history of trolling, and the strong support for anonymous and pseudonymous discourse on the Internet, suggests that the story of the "anonymous troll" is only beginning. Whether there can be a "culture" consisting of people who do not know each other, except through a common experience of being bounced from Internet forums, is questionable, but some do claim it is possible and already occurring. There is strong evidence for this in the existence of forums that claim to exist specifically to support trolls and trolling, to exchange troll tips, and to identify targets that other trolls might fruitfully bait or debate. Trolling culture is best observed in trolls, who do not know each other, working together. Because the common methods of creating inflammatory posts are well known, and a subject of jokes in many places on the Internet, it is sometimes possible for a troll to identify another troll at work. A troll, trolling another troll, often creates massive amounts of pretend drama between them that are taken seriously by non-troll observers (especially if they take sides). The end result is that the two trolls can work together to force a conversation to go off topic, or center a forum's discussion around themselves, more effectively than on their own.

Trolling as Identity Deception

Pre-history

Prior to DejaNews' archiving of Usenet, accounts of trolling were sketchy, there being little evidence to sort through. After that time, however, the huge archives were available for researchers. Perhaps the earliest, although poorly documented, case is the 1982 - 83 saga of AlexAndJoan from the CompuServe forums. Van Gelder, a reporter for Ms. magazine, documented the incident in 1996 in an article for his publication. Alex (in real life a very shy 50 year old psychiatrist from New York) pretended to be a highly bombastic, anti-religious, post-car-accident, wheelchair-bound, mute woman, named, "Joan", "in order to better relate to his female patients". This went on for two years, and "Joan" had become a hugely detailed character, with an array of emotional relationships. These only began to fall apart after "Joan" coaxed an online friend of hers into an affair with Alex. :"Even those who barely knew Joan felt implicated — and somehow betrayed — by Alex's deception. Many of us on-line like to believe that we're a utopian community of the future, and Alex's experiment proved to us all that technology is no shield against deceit. We lost our innocence, if not our faith." (Van Gelder, 1996, p.534)

Trolling in the 1990s

One early reference to "troll" found in the Google Usenet archive was by user "Mark Miller", directed toward the user, "Tad", on February 8, 1990 [http://groups-beta.google.com/group/alt.flame/browse_thread/thread/44c94ccfa7ede2bf/80135728c2dc034b?q=troll&_done=%2Fgroups%3Fhl%3Den%26safe%3Doff%26q%3Dtroll%26qt_s%3DSearch+Groups%26as_drrb%3Db%26as_mind%3D8%26as_minm%3D2%26as_miny%3D1990%26as_maxd%3D11%26as_maxm%3D2%26as_maxy%3D1990%26&_doneTitle=Back+to+Search&&d#80135728c2dc034b]. However, it is unclear if this instance represents a usage of "troll" as it is known today, or if it was simply a chance choice of epithet: :"You are so far beyond being able to understand anything anyone here says that this is just converging on uselessness. The really sad part is that you really believe that you're winning. You are a shocking waste of natural resources — kindly re-integrate yourself into the food-chain. Just go die in your sleep you mindless flatulent troll." The more likely derivation can be found in the phrase, "trolling for newbies", popularized in the early 1990s in the Usenet group, alt.folklore.urban. The usage was somewhat different from the current notion of trolling; it was a relatively gentle inside joke by veteran users, presenting questions or topics that had been so overdone, only a new user would respond to them earnestly. Others expanded the term to include the practice of playing a seriously misinformed or deluded user, even in newsgroups where one was not a regular; these were often attempts at humor, rather than provocation. In such contexts, the noun, "troll", usually referred to an act of trolling, rather than to the author. Some long-time Usenet users continued to insist on these earlier definitions, even after the term was applied more generally to inflammatory actions, previously characterized as "flamebait".

Identity

In serious literature, the practice was first documented by Judith Donath (1999), who used several anecdotal examples from various Usenet newsgroups in her discussion. Donath's paper outlines the ambiguousness of identity in a disembodied "virtual community" [http://smg.media.mit.edu/people/Judith/Identity/IdentityDeception.html]: :"In the physical world there is an inherent unity to the self, for the body provides a compelling and convenient definition of identity. The norm is: one body, one identity. ... The virtual world is different. It is composed of information rather than matter." Donath provides a concise overview of identity deception games which trade on the confusion between physical and epistemic community: :"Trolling is a game about identity deception, albeit one that is played without the consent of most of the players. The troll attempts to pass as a legitimate participant, sharing the group's common interests and concerns; the newsgroups members, if they are cognizant of trolls and other identity deceptions, attempt to both distinguish real from trolling postings, and upon judging a poster a troll, make the offending poster leave the group. Their success at the former depends on how well they — and the troll — understand identity cues; their success at the latter depends on whether the troll's enjoyment is sufficiently diminished or outweighed by the costs imposed by the group. :Trolls can be costly in several ways. A troll can disrupt the discussion on a newsgroup, disseminate bad advice, and damage the feeling of trust in the newsgroup community. Furthermore, in a group that has become sensitized to trolling — where the rate of deception is high — many honestly naïve questions may be quickly rejected as trollings. This can be quite off-putting to the new user who upon venturing a first posting is immediately bombarded with angry accusations. Even if the accusation is unfounded, being branded a troll is quite damaging to one's online reputation." (Donath, 1999, p. 45)[http://smg.media.mit.edu/people/Judith/Identity/IdentityDeception.html]
Usage
The term troll is highly subjective. Some readers may characterize a post as trolling, while others may regard the same post as a legitimate contribution to the discussion, even if controversial. The term is often used to discredit an opposing position, or its proponent, by argument ad hominem. Likewise, calling someone a troll makes assumptions about a writer's motives that may be incorrect. Regardless of the writer's motives, controversial posts are likely to attract a corrective or patronizing or outraged response by those who do not distinguish between real physical community (where people are actually exposed to some shared risk of bodily harm by their actions), and epistemic community (based on a mere exchange of words and ideas). Customs of discourse, or etiquette, originating in physical communities are often applied naively to online discourse by newcomers who are not used to the range of views expressed online, often anonymously. Hence, both users and posts are commonly, and sometimes inaccurately, labelled as trolls when their content upsets people. Also, people may be more inclined to use epithets like troll in online public discussion than they would be in person, because online forums may seem more impersonal. PDNFTT is a common initalism for Please Do Not Feed The Trolls. initalism When appropriately applied to purposefully disruptive online behavior, the word troll economically converts an abstract code of online manners into a concrete image. Experienced participants in online forums know that the most effective way to discourage a troll is usually to ignore him or her, because responding encourages a true troll to continue disruptive posts to that forum — hence the often-seen warning, "Please do not feed the Troll". Posting this warning publicly, in reply to a troll's behavior to discourage further replies, may discourage the troll. However, it can also have the reverse effect, becoming itself food for the troll. Therefore, when a forum participant sees an apparently innocent answer to a troll as potential troll food, it may be more prudent to deliver the "Please do not feed the Troll" warning in a private message to the answerer (e.g., by email, or to the answerer's wiki Talk page).
Trolling in different internet media
Trolling takes distinct forms in different media; it started on newsgroups, and as the Internet has evolved, so has trolling.
- Usenet — hierarchies of newsgroups limit trolls' exposure, but crossposting can overcome this. Some Internet service providers implement limits on the number of newsgroups a message can be crossposted to. In one notable example, alt.net, instituted a cross-post limit after the trolls on the system had become so notorious that Peter da Silva instituted a campaign for other systems to cease exchanging news with alt.net until they did something about the problem.
- Mailing lists — usually controlled by moderators, so unwanted contributors can quickly be banned.
- SlashCode — based forums use a rating system so that readers can moderate a post up or down from its initial rating. Readers can then choose to ignore posts that others have "modded down." Timing of trolls is particularly important, since earlier posts are more likely to be read than later posts. An ideal troll would generate much heated discussion and posting without further intervention from the troll.
- Wikis — the flat, asynchronous and open model allows anyone to post anything; users work to undo negative changes using the built-in reversion tools, but this requires hundreds of volunteers to monitor large popular sites. Trolls tend to be more subtle than in discussion groups, often posting material that could be legitimate, but will cause controversy by challenging the current power structure. Difficulty is compounded by the impossibility of discerning whether a user is simply espousing a controversial opinion, or trolling. Sometimes Wikis get vandalized.
- Weblogs — in their most common form as a personal soapbox with the ability for anybody to leave comments, popular weblogs often make effective springboards for trolls, either as inflammatory comments or provocative entries. The ease with which weblogs can be linked encourages troll propagation.
- IRC — the open nature of most IRC channels on popular networks enables any potential troll to enter and utilise any of a range of techniques, ranging from simple crapflooding to subtly irritating remarks which trigger angry responses. The relative ease of evading bans from channels and servers and the volatile nature of many IRC users can allow trolls to perpetuate indefinitely.
- Multiplayer first person shooters — online gaming attracts a large number of teenage males, who take advantage of the combative atmosphere and their general anonymity to disparage other players. See pwn or noob for more information. Team killing and griefing -- breaking the social rules of the game to harass other players -- can also be considered similar.
- Online Fantasy Sports — A troll will infiltrate a free, online league with multiple teams from different identity accounts and then attempt to make lopsided trades of players to improve one team. The troll will leave numerous messages on the league bulletin board from different identities to give the appearance of legitimacy to otherwise illicit behavior. Players that object to the obvious complicity are usually showered with insults and other attempts at evasion.
- Web forums — Forums of all kinds will attract trolls. Their behavior does not differ much from the above examples. There is nearly no forum free of trolls except with a few exceptions of very small sites and those with exceptionally strict policies on trolling.
Examples

One-shot trolls
One-shot troll messages are intended to be disruptive, and tend to be very obvious to ensure that they will receive annoyed replies:
Disruptive trolls

- Off topic messages: Those that are irrelevant to the focus of the forum.
- Page widening: Filling up fields with large pictures or characters to make previous posts unreadable.
- Offensive media: Annoying sound files or disturbing pictures in a message, or linking to shock sites that contain such media. Often these links are disguised as legitimate links.
- Inflammatory messages, including racist comments.
- Deliberately revealing the ending of a recent popular movie or book.
- Bumping an old discussion, or rehashing a highly controversial past topic, particularly in smaller online communities.
- Deliberate and repeated misspelling of other people's nicks in order to disturb or irritate them in a conversation.
Attention-seeking trolls
This class of trolls seeks to obtain as many responses as possible and to absorb a disproportionate amount of the collective attention span.
- Advertising another forum, especially a rival or a hated forum.
- Messages containing an obvious flaw or error: "I think 2001: A Space Odyssey is Roman Polanski's best movie."
- Asking for help with an implausable task or problem "How do I season my Crock Pot? I don't want everything cooked in it to taste the same."
- Intentionally naive questions: "Can I use olive oil instead of water, when cooking pasta?"
- Messages containing a self referential appeals to status. "Evian is bottled water for white trash. I prefer Dasani water imported from Italy."
- Intentionally posting an outrageous argument, deliberately constructed around a fundamental but obfuscated flaw or error. Often the poster will become defensive when the argument is refuted, but may instead continue the thread through the use of further flawed arguments; this is referred to as "feeding" the troll.
- A subclass of the above is the flawed proof of an important unsolved mathematical problem or impossibility (e.g. 1 = 2); however, these may not always be troll-posts, and are sometimes, at least, mathematically interesting.
- Politically contentious messages: "I think George W. Bush is the best/worst President ever."
- Posting politically sensitive images in inappropriate places.
- Pretending to be innocent, after a flamewar ensues.
- Off-topic complaints about personal life, or threats of suicide: sometimes, this is the "cry for help" troll.
- Plural or paranoid answers to personal opinions expressed by individuals: "I don't believe that all of you really believe that, you are teaming against me."
- Paramour trolls get a thrill from establishing serial online affairs with females of a group. This incites public rivalry among the women who once thought the nicknames, poetry, love statements were exclusive to them. Since the online love affair is developed separately in chat programs, it takes a long time for the online cat-fight to be detected.
- Any combination of the above: For example, a troll will combine inflammatory statements with poor grammar and AIM-speak (which is also known as "netspeak" or "chatspeak"). "lmfao u are so weak minded and predictablei thought i wan iggied i play ya like a card"
Other Examples
Some trolls may denounce a particular religion in a religion newsgroup, though historically, this would have been called "flamebait". Like those who engage in flaming, self-proclaimed or alleged internet trolls sometimes resort to innuendoes or misdirections in the pursuit of their objectives. A variant of the second variety (inflammatory messages) involves posting content obviously severely contradictory to the (stated or unstated) focus of the group or forum; for example, posting cat meat recipes on a pet lovers forum, posting evolutionary theory on a creationist forum (or vice versa), or posting messages about how all dragons are boring in the USENET group alt.fan.dragons. The "sock puppet" troll often enters a forum using several different identities. As postings from one identity attract increasingly critical comment from other forum members, the troll enters the forum using a second identity in support of the first. The troll may even use postings from the second identity to criticise those from the first in order to develop credibility on the forum. Cross-posting is a popular method of choice by Usenet trolls: a cross-posted article can be discussed simultaneously in several unrelated and/or opposing newsgroups; this is likely to result in a flame war. For instance, an anti-fast food flame bait might be cross-posted to healthy eating groups, environmentalist groups, animal rights groups, as well as a totally off-topic artificial intelligence newsgroup. An example of a successful troll is the well-known "Oh how I envy American students" USENET thread which had 3,000-odd follow-ups. A new USENET newsgroup, "alt.genius.bill-palmer", was created by [http://igor.chudov.com/ Igor Chudov] for the purpose of creating an outlet for discussing a controversial USENET personality, Bill Palmer, himself an alleged USENET troll who managed to make his personality the center of all discussions. A swirl of messages attempting to disprove his alleged status as genius, cross-posted to hell and back, made "a.g.b-p", the most popular new "alt.
- " newsgroup of the year. Its creator was [http://www.cyberussr.com/hcunn/usenet/palm-chudov.html nominated] for the "Troll of the Year 1996" award.
Motivation
Self-proclaimed "trolls" may style themselves as devil's advocates, gadflies or "culture jammers", challenging the dominant discourse and assumptions of forum discussions in an attempt to break the status quo of groupthink — the belief system that prevails in their absence. Critics have claimed that genuine "devil's advocates" generally identify themselves as such, out of respect for etiquette and courtesy, while trolls may dismiss etiquette and courtesy altogether. Most discussion of what motivates internet trolls comes from other internet users who claim to have observed trolling behavior. There is little scholarly literature to describe either the term or the phenomenon. The comments of accused trolls might be unreliable, since they may, in fact, be intending to stir controversy, rather than to advance understanding of the phenomenon. Likewise, accusers are often motivated by a desire to defend a particular internet project, and references to an Internet user as a troll might not be based on the actual goals of the person so named. As a result, identifying the goals of Internet trolls is most often speculative. Still, several basic goals have been attributed to internet trolls, according to the type of disruption they are believed to be provoking. Proposed motivations for trolling:
- Trolling can be described as a breaching experiment, which, because of the use of an alternate persona, allows for normal social boundaries and rules of etiquette to be tested or otherwise broken, without serious consequences. This may be part of an attempt to test the limits of some discourse, or to identify reactive personalities. By removing identities and histories from the situation, leaving only the discourse, some scientists believe that it is possible to run social engineering experiments using troll methods. However, few believe that troll organizations are engaged in science, and a few scattered individuals, with no particular method or thesis, cannot be described as scientists. They might however be engaged in research.
- Anonymous attention-seeking: The troll seeks to dominate the thread by inciting anger, and effectively hijacking the topic at hand.
- Amusement: To some people, the thought of a person getting angry over statements from total strangers is entertaining.
- Anger: Some people use trolling to express their hostility to a group or point of view.
- Cry for help: Many so-called trolls, in their postings, indicate disturbing situations regarding family, relationships, substances, and school — although it is generally impossible to know whether this is just simply part of the troll. Some believe that trolling is an aggressive, confrontational way by which trolls seek a sort of tough love guidance in an anonymous forum.
- Self-proclaimed trolls, and their defenders, suggest that trolling is a clever way of improving discussion, or an alternative method of viewing power-relations.
- Setting oneself a challenge, simply to see if one can do it, and be successful: One member of an online forum, for example, joins under an unrecognizable identifying name to see if the other members of the forum can be fooled and, if so, for how long.
- Wasting others' time: One of the greatest themes in trolling is the idea that a troll can spend one minute of time posting a troll, causing multiple other people to waste several minutes of their time, catalytically affecting others. Most trolls enjoy the idea that they can waste others' time at comparatively little effort on their behalf.
- Domino effect: Related to amusement, but in a more specific fashion, it starts large chain reactions in response to one's initial post. Achieving a disproportionately large response to a small action is the general theme. This is similar to how a young child that goes "missing" (but is actually hiding) may act with glee, seeing a large number of people conducting a massive search in response to the supposed disappearance.
- Suppression of information: A particularly nihilistic troll often aims to curb the sharing of helpful information between forum participants. For example, the skilled troll can turn an informative discussion about tips and techniques on coping with disease X... into a completely useless flame fest. This can keep essential information out of the hands of those who need it most, thus proliferating human suffering.
- Effect change in user opinions: A troll may state extreme positions to make his or her actual beliefs seem moderate (this often involves sock puppeteering or duals, where the bad cop is a sock-puppet troll) or, alternatively, play the role of the devil's advocate to strengthen the opposing convictions (with which he or she actually agrees).
- Test the integrity of a system against social attacks or other forms of misbehavior: For example, blatantly violating terms-of-use in order to see whether any action is taken by the site administrators.
- Overcome feelings of inferiority or powerlessness by getting the experience of controlling an environment.
- Self-promotion.
- Fight "groupthink": Many trolls defend their actions as shocking people out of entrenched conformism. conformism before his 2005 death. Other trolls include Gamefaqs regulars, SupermanAdvanced (and his many alts), Slithy, MrOriginality, and many others]]
- Satire: In these cases, the individuals do not think of themselves as trolls, but misunderstood humorists or political commentators.
- Satisfaction gained from personal attacks.
- Harassment: following a person — who has been targetted for harassment in one forum, but who has chosen to escape being victimized by moving on — and trolling the forum as a means of making that new "home" an uncomfortable place for that person to be online.
- Lowering signal to noise ratio: On Slashdot, moderation points, that could be used to moderate up alternative posts, are wasted on moderating down things like ASCII pictures of the goatse man. At certain thresholds, this lowers the quality of comments.
- Anonymously testing an alternate persona.
- Emptying a forum: this is usually only feasible if the forum is small. It is difficult to gauge the motivations of trolls, since most of the justifications offered by alleged trolls for their behavior are nothing more than ruses concocted to continue whatever mischief they imagine themselves to have started. This is unfortunate because, as the above list supposes, there are legitimate reasons for engaging in the sort of actions for which trolling is known. Still, etiquette is simple and straightforward enough that most people can advance the aims professed by self-exculpatory trolls, without actually resorting to these methods. Since there is a wide spectrum of possible motivations for trolls, some of these functions being benevolent and others, clearly malevolent, to typecast users as trolls in the negative sense is often rash. Some users of internet forums are considered to be "trollhunters", or "trollbaiters". They willingly enter into conflicts when trolls emerge. Often, trollhunters are as disruptive as trolls. A single troll-post may be ignored, but if ten trollhunters "pounce", following a troll, they will drive the thread off-topic.
Resolutions and Alternatives
In general, popular wisdom advises users to avoid feeding trolls, and to ignore temptations to respond. Responding to a troll inevitably drives discussion off-topic, to the dismay of bystanders, and supplies the troll with the craved attention. When trollhunters pounce on the trolls, ignorers reply with: "YHBT. YHL. HAND.", or "You have been trolled. You have lost. Have a nice day." However, since trollhunters (like trolls) are often conflict-seekers themselves, the loss usually is not on the part of the trollhunter; rather, the losers are the other forum-users who would have preferred that the conflict does not emerge at all. Literature on conflict resolution suggests that labeling participants in internet discussions as "trolls" can perpetuate the unwanted behaviors. A person rejected by a social group, both online and offline, may assume an antagonistic role toward it, and seek to further annoy or anger members of the group. The "troll" label, often a sign of social rejection, may therefore perpetuate trolling. Better results normally ensue when users take the moderator role and describe more constructive behaviors in a non-judgmental, non-confrontational way. Trolls are excited by trollhunters, and frustrated by "ignorers", and neither of these emotions produce positive results for the forum. Engaging trolls results in "flame wars". Trolls frustrated by the "ignore strategy" may leave the forum (and either troll elsewhere, or become constructive users) or may become progressively more inflammatory until they get a response. Novice trolls may experience serious "troll's remorse", a feeling of great regret after losing their account (whether it be from an Internet service provider or from a website) as a consequence of their reckless trolling. There are those who argue that a lack of response to trolling can also inspire trolling, a "Damned if you do, damned if you don't" result. Particularly fanatical or irrational commentators will respond to a forum that irks them largely independent of responses. Trolls also often continue to post, taking umbrage with peripheral arguments or arguments that were less well-founded, until their positions become untenable, then turning either to insults or moving to another topic. By this logic, relentless confrontation through argument of trolls (when such argument is to be found) can be vital.
Usefulness of Trolling
A major debate on the Internet is whether or not trolls perform any useful function. Because troll is such a broadly-applied term, if all definitions thereof are to be accepted, the answer must definitively be "yes and no". Users performing many useful, but controversial, functions are often decried as trolls, and in these cases, so-called trolling may actually benefit the forum in which it occurs. For example, the presence of a radical right-winger, described as a troll, may allow a conservative lurker to feel more comfortable expressing his or her viewpoints, which seem very moderate in contrast. On the other hand, if trollhunters mount a flame war against this right-wing troll, the conservative bystander may feel less comfortable in expressing her views, to the detriment of the forum. As much as trolls claim to fight groupthink, they may actually encourage it by solidifying opinion against them. Trolls can also, in some circumstances, be a source of genuine humour, which depends entirely upon whether the troll is a good or a bad troll. It is usually fairly easy to spot the difference between such actions: a bad troll resorts only to weak uncreative arguments, whereas a good troll will create a subtle set of arguments which draw people in, with cunning twists to provide a thread of non sequitur humour. Trolls may also provide a valuable service by making people question the validity of what is read both on the internet, and from other sources. Trolls show that expressing any opinion is as easy as expressing an informed and considered opinion, and may get as much visibility. It has also been argued that shock jocks, and newspaper columnists, often track public opinions by trolling. John C. Dvorak, and Slashdot, have often been cited as examples. Even though useful content and productive users are sometimes decried as trolls, the consensus is that pure "trolling" benefits only the troll and trollhunters, and has no place in any forum. Most forums reject the claim that pure and intentional trolling serves any useful purpose. Some trolls have been known to try to troll threads into deletion, serving as a form of negative reinforcement to "newbies", but also helping at the same time to reduce the clutter of spam threads on a large message board. In many cases, trolling can lead a forum administrator or moderator into implementing features to the site to prevent trolling. Although this could be regarded as improving the website itself, it remains that the features would not have been needed, had the trolls not been there.
Behaviorism
Precise definitions of "troll" are difficult because such definitions rely on assumptions about internal motivation, which cannot be conclusively proven without reverse-engineering the details of the human mind. Some behaviors, such as "name-calling" are obvious candidates for a "troll" classification, but often, what is considered "trolling" is more subtle and disputable. (Name-calling, perhaps, would fall under the classification of "flamer" instead.) Some have suggested that instead of calling somebody a "troll", they should focus on specific behaviors that a group finds uncomfortable, and enforce behavioral rules to consistently and fairly prevent such behaviors. The idea is to focus on the undesirable behavior itself, rather than on the motivation for the behavior. If such behaviors cannot be identified, then perhaps the alleged troll should be tolerated out of fairness. Some call this, the "If you cannot identify it, then tolerate it" plan.
An Alternative View
While trolls and trolling are, by and large, considered a negative and undesirable presence on a forum, some claim a belief that trolling is inherently bad can have damaging consequences. The use of the word, "terrorist" is often cited as an example of stepping over the line. However, anything that is labeled with the word "terrorist" rallies a feeling of an "us versus them" mentality, which are helpful both in ostracizing trollish behavior, and in strengthening the 'need' for anti-troll tactics, thereby consolidating the webmaster's support. In most cases, the latter is an unexpected bonus in dealing with trolls. However, a pertinent question arises: "What if this is the only goal, and that the webmaster merely wishes to silence a variety of criticisms, ranging from poor moderation and too much advertising, to restrictions on discussion topics?" Playing the 'troll' card may therefore be the webmaster's weapon of choice. The polarizing effect that the issue of trolling has on online communities has lead to several schisms. [http://www.wordforge.net/ Wordforge], for example, was created as an alternative to Trekbbs, touting itself as a general discussion board, designed as a place where rules are limited so that the 'troll card' cannot again be played in a self-serving manner. Such boards are very much in the minority, as compared to a usual board where "trolling = bad", an accurate and useful descriptor. Many (perhaps most) people, labelled "trolls", are simply being called thus by someone else in the course of a religious, political or other ordinary type of dispute; in other words, they are labelled as one for acting as a dissident or heretic. To characterize systems administrators or moderators as "the troll who got there first" is not entirely inaccurate. Many debates, between those with and without administrative or legal powers, seem simply to resemble a heated, personal, argument. On the internet in particular, the holding of technological powers (such as the power to ban users or block IP addresses) is not necessarily a sign of any superior political or moral judgement. As with similar pejorative labels, a group of people who are assigned the label can turn it around to create group identity, and the power to collectively resist. Individual outsiders, using the label on someone, become targets for a collective response. Insiders, however, may use the label without consequence, usually in a joking or disarming way.
See also

Specific trolling subcultures

- Adequacy.org
- Gay Nigger Association of America (GNAA)
- Slashdot trolling phenomena (see also: Slashdot subculture)
- Gaia Online trolling phenomena
- Yahoo! trolling phenomena
- Troll organizations
- Trolltalk Trollgnaws: alt.fan.karl-malden.nose
Related Trolling Terminology

- Baiting
- Kibo
- Page widening
- Sokal Affair (an offline example)
- Gadfly (social)
- AOLamer
- Breaching experiment
- Devil's Advocate
- Virtual community
External links

- [http://www.annoy.com/ Annoy.com]: A professional troll who fights for freedom of speech.
- [http://adequacy.org/ Adequacy.org]: Archive of Adequacy.org, now only an archive version of a troll site.
- [http://groups-beta.google.com/group/alt.college.fraternities/msg/df3cd97b78a4e066 "Oh how I envy American students"]
- [http://www.slis.indiana.edu/CSI/WP/WP02-03B.html Searching for Safety Online: Managing "Trolling" in a Feminist Forum]
- [http://www.searchlores.org/trolls.htm#info Trolling for information]: How to use trolling techniques in order to lure information (together with fravia's "[http://www.searchlores.org/trolls.htm#troscho Trolls and Schopenhauer]" comparison).
- [http://www.adequacy.org/public/stories/2001.12.2.42056.2147.html Is Your Son a Computer Hacker?]: One of the most successful trolls ever, this article on the now-defunct Adequacy.org attracted almost 6,000 responses.
- [http://leaguefreak.playiirl.com/trolls.html Known Rugby League Forum Trolls]: A look at Trolls that frequent Rugby League websites.
- [http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/How_to_troll How to Troll]: A guide for learning how to troll, trolling styles, and techniques for effective trolling.
Troll Boards

- [http://trollsonly.com Trolls Only]: Where trolls meet and content is discouraged.
- [http://www.wordforge.net Wordforge]: A site where trolling is both encouraged and regulated.
- http://warrior25.proboards76.com/index.cgi (Trolls-r-us) Site for trolls of all kind.
Troll FAQs

- [http://www.searchlores.org/trolls.htm General, specific and fundamental trolling lore]
- [http://www.urban75.com/Mag/troll.html urban75 Trolling FAQ: Comprehensive guide to the dark art of trolling]
- [http://groups.google.com/groups?ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&as_umsgid=36a7593e.22750214@ruble.net&lr=&hl=en-us alt.troll FAQ] (how-to)
- [http://spiralx.dyndns.org/howto.html Spiralx Slashdot troll how-to]
- [http://www.angelfire.com/space/usenet/ How to Handle a Troll and Beat Them at Their Own Game]
- [http://www.cuyamaca.net/bruce.thompson/Fallacies/intro_fallacies.asp Bruce Thompson's page on logical fallacies]
- [http://www.cs.uu.nl/wais/html/na-dir/net-abuse-faq/troll-faq.html alt.syntax.tactical FAQ]
- [http://faqs.jmas.co.jp/FAQs/1999/Feb/990211.01 afk-mn FAQ]: Mostly old-style Usenet trolling.
- [http://thingy.apana.org.au/~fun/fsckhead.html What Makes A Fuckhead?] by David Kendrick.
- [http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?FalseRepentance False repentance]
- [http://www.emoderators.com/papers/flames.html The relationship between social context cues and uninhibited verbal behavior in computer-mediated communication]
- [http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol7/issue1/baker.html Moral panic and alternative identity construction in Usenet]
- [http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/T/troll.html Troll] entry in the Jargon File
- [http://www.jestsandjokes.com/show.php3?joke=185 Humorous definition of a troll]
- [http://members.aol.com/intwg/trolls.htm Internet Trolls]
- [http://redwing.hutman.net/~mreed/warriorshtm/troller.htm Flame Warriors: Troller]: Witty and well observed cartoon depictions of flame warriors, including trolls and related types. Troll Category:Internet culture Category:Internet terminology Category:Popular psychology ja:荒らし

Internet
:For the more general networking concept, see internetworking. The Internet, or simply the Net, is the worldwide system of interconnected computer networks which makes information stored on it accessible. This information is transmitted by packet switching using a standardized Internet Protocol (IP) and many other protocols. It is made up of thousands of smaller commercial, academic, domestic and government networks. It carries various information and services, such as electronic mail, online chat, and the interlinked web pages and other documents of the World Wide Web.
Creation of the Internet
During the 1950s, several communications researchers realized that there was a need to allow general communication between users of various computers and communications networks. This led to research into decentralized networks, queuing theory, and packet switching. The subsequent creation of ARPANET in the United States in turn catalyzed a wave of technical developments that made it the basis for the development of the Internet. Contrary to popular myth, the DoD did not create the ARPANET so that they could communicate to the US Government after a nuclear war. The first TCP/IP wide area network was operational in 1984 when the United States' National Science Foundation (NSF) constructed a university network backbone that would later become the NSFNet. It was then followed by the opening of the network to commercial interests in 1995. Important separate networks that offered gateways into, then later merged into the Internet include Usenet, Bitnet and the various commercial and educational X.25 networks such as Compuserve and JANET. The ability of TCP/IP to work over these pre-existing communication networks allowed for a great ease of growth. Use of Internet as a phrase to describe a single global TCP/IP network originated around this time. The collective network gained a public face in the 1990s. In August 1991 CERN in Switzerland publicized the new World Wide Web project, two years after Tim Berners-Lee had begun creating HTML, HTTP and the first few web pages at CERN in Switzerland. In 1993 the Mosaic web browser version 1.0 was released, and by late 1994 there was growing public interest in the previously academic/technical Internet. By 1996 the word "Internet" was common public currency, but it referred almost entirely to the World Wide Web. Meanwhile, over the course of the decade, the Internet successfully accommodated the majority of previously existing public computer networks (although some networks such as FidoNet have remained separate). This growth is often attributed to the lack of central administration, which allows organic growth of the network, as well as the non-proprietary open nature of the Internet protocols, which encourages vendor interoperability and prevents any one company from exerting too much control over the network.
Today's Internet
FidoNets, FTP client, and Telnet client]] Apart from the complex physical connections that make up its infrastructure, the Internet is held together by bi- or multi-lateral commercial contracts (for example peering agreements) and by technical specifications or protocols that describe how to exchange data over the network. Indeed, the Internet is essentially defined by its interconnections and routing policies. In an often-cited, if perhaps gratuitously mathematical definition, Seth Breidbart once described the Internet as "the largest equivalence class in the reflexive, transitive, symmetric closure of the relationship 'can be reached by an IP packet from'". Unlike older communications systems, the Internet protocol suite was deliberately designed to be independent of the underlying physical medium. Any communications network, wired or wireless, that can carry two-way digital data can carry Internet traffic. Thus, Internet packets flow through wired networks like copper wire, coaxial cable, and fiber optic; and through wireless networks like Wi-Fi. Together, all these networks, sharing the same high-level protocols, form the Internet. The Internet protocols originate from discussions within the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and its working groups, which are open to public participation and review. These committees produce documents that are known as Request for Comments documents (RFCs). Some RFCs are raised to the status of Internet Standard by the Internet Architecture Board (IAB). Some of the most used protocols in the Internet protocol suite are IP, TCP, UDP, DNS, PPP, SLIP, ICMP, POP3, IMAP, SMTP, HTTP, HTTPS, SSH, Telnet, FTP, LDAP, SSL, and TLS. Some of the popular services on the Internet that make use of these protocols are e-mail, Usenet newsgroups, file sharing, Instant Messenger, the World Wide Web, Gopher, session access, WAIS, finger, IRC, MUDs, and MUSHs. Of these, e-mail and the World Wide Web are clearly the most used, and many other services are built upon them, such as mailing lists and blogs. The Internet makes it possible to provide real-time services such as Internet radio and webcasts that can be accessed from anywhere in the world. Some other popular services of the Internet were not created this way, but were originally based on proprietary systems. These include IRC, ICQ, AIM, and Gnutella. There have been many analyses of the Internet and its structure. For example, it has been determined that the Internet IP routing structure and hypertext links of the World Wide Web are examples of scale-free networks. Similar to how the commercial Internet providers connect via Internet exchange points, research networks tend to interconnect into large subnetworks such as:
- GEANT
- Internet2
- GLORIAD These in turn are built around relatively smaller networks. See also the list of academic computer network organizations In network schematic diagrams, the Internet is often represented by a cloud symbol, into and out of which network communications can pass.
Internet culture
The Internet is also having a profound impact on work, leisure, knowledge and worldviews. worldviews]]
ICANN
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is the authority that coordinates the assignment of unique identifiers on the Internet, including domain names, Internet protocol addresses, and protocol port and parameter numbers. A globally unified namespace (i.e., a system of names in which there is one and only one holder of each name) is essential for the Internet to function. ICANN is headquartered in Marina del Rey, California, but is overseen by an international board of directors drawn from across the Internet technical, business, academic, and non-commercial communities. The US government continues to have a privileged role in approving changes to the root zone file that lies at the heart of the domain name system. Because the Internet is a distributed network comprising many voluntarily interconnected networks, the Internet, as such, has no governing body. ICANN's role in coordinating the assignment of unique identifiers distinguishes it as perhaps the only central coordinating body on the global Internet, but the scope of its authority extends only to the Internet's systems of domain names, Internet protocol addresses, and protocol port and parameter numbers.
The World Wide Web
Through keyword-driven Internet research using search engines like Google, millions worldwide have easy, instant access to a vast and diverse amount of online information. Compared to encyclopedias and traditional libraries, the World Wide Web has enabled a sudden and extreme decentralization of information and data. Some companies and individuals have adopted the use of 'weblogs' or blogs, which are largely used as easily-updatable online diaries. Some commercial organizations encourage staff to fill them with advice on their areas of specialization in the hope that visitors will be impressed by the expert knowledge and free information, and be attracted to the corporation as a result. One example of this practice is Microsoft, via whose product developers publish their personal blogs in order to pique the public's interest in their work. For more information on the distinction between the World Wide Web and the Internet itself — as in everyday use the two are sometimes confused — see Dark internet where this is discussed in more detail.
Remote access
The Internet allows computer users to connect to other computers and information stores easily, wherever they may be across the world. They may do this with or without the use of security, authentication and encryption technologies, depending on the requirements. This is encouraging new ways of working from home, collaboration and information sharing in many industries. An accountant sitting at home can audit the books of a company based in another country, on a server situated in a third country that is remotely maintained by IT specialists in a fourth. These accounts could have been created by home-working book-keepers, in other remote locations, based on information e-mailed to them from offices all over the world. Some of these things were possible before the widespread use of the Internet, but the cost of private, leased lines would have made many of them infeasible in practice. An office worker away from his or her desk, perhaps the other side of the world on a business trip or a holiday, can open a remote desktop session into his or her normal office PC using a secure Virtual Private Network (VPN) connection via the Internet. This gives him or her complete access to all their normal files and data, including e-mail and other applications, while they are away.
Collaboration
This low-cost and nearly instantaneous sharing of ideas, knowledge and skills has revolutionized some, and given rise to whole new, areas of human activity. One example of this is the collaborative development and distribution of Free/Libre/Open-Source Software (FLOSS) such as Linux, Mozilla and OpenOffice.org. See Collaborative software.
File-sharing
A computer file can be e-mailed to customers, colleagues and friends as an attachment. It can be uploaded to a website or FTP server for easy download by others. It can be put into a "shared location" or onto a file server for instant use by colleagues. The load of bulk downloads to many users can be eased by the use of "mirror" servers or peer-to-peer networking. In any of these cases, access to the file may be controlled by user authentication; the transit of the file over the Internet may be obscured by encryption and money may change hands before or after access to the file is given. The price can be paid by the remote charging of funds from, for example a credit card whose details are also passed - hopefully fully encrypted - across the Internet. The origin and authenticity of the file received may be checked by digital signatures or by MD5 message digests. These simple features of the Internet, over a world-wide basis, are changing the basis for the production, sale and distribution of many types of product, wherever they can be reduced to a computer file for transmission. This includes all manner of office documents, publications, software products, music, photography, video, animations, graphics and the other arts. This in turn is causing seismic shifts in each of the existing industry associations, such as the RIAA and MPAA, that previously controlled the production and distribution of these products.
Streaming media and VoIP
Many existing radio and television broadcasters have provided Internet 'feeds' of their live audio and video streams (for example, the BBC). They have been joined by a range of pure Internet 'broadcasters' who never had on-air licences. This means that an Internet-connected device, such as a computer or something more specific, can be used to access on-line media in much the same way as was previously possible only with a TV or radio receiver. The range of material is much wider, from pornography to highly specialised technical web-casts. The simplest equipment can allow anybody, with little censorship or licencing control, to broadcast on a worldwide basis. Time-shift viewing or listening is not a problem as the BBC have shown with their Preview, Classic Clips and Listen Again features. Web-cams can be seen as an even lower-budget extension of this phenomenon. In this case the picture may update only slowly - perhaps once every few seconds or slower, but Internet users can watch animals around an African waterhole, ships in the Panama Canal or the traffic at a local roundabout live and in real time. Video chat rooms, video conferencing, and remote controllable webcams have become popular. Some people install webcams in their bedrooms that can be accessed by other voyeurs, often with two-way sound. VoIP stands for Voice over IP, where IP refers to the Internet Protocol that underlies all Internet communication. This phenomenon began as an optional two-way voice extension to some of the Instant Messaging systems that took off around the turn of the millennium. In recent years many people and organizations have made VoIP systems as easy to use and as convenient as a normal telephone. The benefit is that, as the actual voice traffic is carried by the Internet, VoIP is free or costs much less than an actual telephone call, especially over long distances and especially for those with always-on ADSL or DSL Internet connections anyway. The disadvantages are that it is still difficult to initiate a call with someone, unless they also have a VoIP phone or are at their computer and that there are still several competing standards that are mitigating against universal acceptance. In all of these cases, existing large organisations, that have grown accustomed to regular incomes for their services, are finding increased competition in their service areas, coming directly from the Internet. While newcomers strive to make these inroads, the traditional industries are having to adapt, adopt, complain or suffer. Meanwhile the consumer in each case most probably benefits from the increased range of services and possible price reductions. Some worry about censorship and control while others see a continuing globalisation of culture and norms.
Language
Main article: English on the Internet The most prevalent language for communication on the Internet is English. This may be due to the Internet's origins or to the growing role of English as an international language. It may also be related to the poor capability of early computers to handle characters other than those in the basic Latin alphabet (see Unicode). After English (32 % of web visitors) the most-requested languages on the world wide web are Chinese 13 %, Japanese 8 %, Spanish 6 %, German 6 % and French 4 %. (From [http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats7.htm Internet World Stats]) By continent, 33 % of the world's Internet users are based in Asia, 29 % in Europe and 23 % in North America.[http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm] The Internet's technologies have developed enough in recent years that good facilities are available for development and communication in most widely used languages. However, some glitches such as mojibake still remain.
Cultural awareness
From a cultural awareness perspective, the Internet has been both an advantage and a liability. For people who are interested in other cultures it provides a significant amount of information and an interactivity that would be unavailable otherwise. However, for people who are not interested in other cultures there is some evidence indicating that the Internet enables them to avoid contact to a greater degree than ever before.
Censorship
Some countries, such as Iran and the People's Republic of China, restrict what people in their countries can see on the Internet, especially unwanted political and religious content. In the Western world, it is Germany that has the highest rate of censorship. Internet Service Providers are required by law to block some sites that contain child pornography or Nazi or Islamist propaganda. Censorship is sometimes done through government sponsored censoring filters, or by means of law or culture, making the propagation of targeted materials extremely hard. At the moment most Internet content is available regardless of where one is in the world, so long as one has the means of connecting to it.
Internet access
Germany Common methods of home access include dial-up, landline broadband (over coaxial cable, fiber optic or copper wires), Wi-Fi, satellite and cell phones. Public places to use the Internet include libraries and Internet cafes, where computers with Internet connections are available. There are also Internet access points in many public places like airport halls, in some cases just for brief use while standing. Various terms are used, such as "public Internet kiosk", "public access terminal", and "Web payphone". Many hotels now also have public terminals, though these are usually fee based. Wi-Fi provides wireless access to computer networks, and therefore can do so to the Internet itself. Hotspots providing such access include Wi-Fi-cafes, where a would-be user needs to bring their own wireless-enabled devices such as a laptop or PDA. These services may be free to all, free to customers only, or fee-based. A hotspot need not be limited to a confined location. The whole campus or park, or even the entire city can be enabled. Grassroots efforts have led to wireless community networks. Apart from Wi-Fi, there have been experiments with proprietary mobile wireless networks like Ricochet, various high-speed data services over cellular or mobile phone networks, and fixed wireless services. These services have not enjoyed widespread success due to their high cost of deployment, which is passed on to users in high usage fees. New wireless technologies such as WiMAX have the potential to alleviate these concerns and enable simple and cost effective deployment of metropolitan area networks covering large, urban areas. There is a growing trend towards wireless mesh networks, which offer a decentralized and redundant infrastructure and are often considered the future of the Internet. Broadband access over power lines was approved in 2004 in the United States in the face of stiff resistance from the amateur radio community. The problem with modulating a carrier signal onto power lines is that an above-ground power line can act as a giant antenna and jam long-distance radio frequencies used by amateurs, seafarers and others. Countries where Internet access is available to a majority of the population include Germany, India, China, Chile, Iceland, Finland, Sweden, Greece, Italy, Australia, Denmark, the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, The Netherlands, Japan, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, South Korea and Norway. The use of the Internet around the world has been growing rapidly over the last decade, although the growth rate seems to have slowed somewhat after 2000. The phase of rapid growth is ending in industrialized countries, as usage becomes ubiquitous there, but the spread continues in Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean and the Middle East. However, there are still problems for many. ADSL and other broadband access are rare or nonexistent in most developing countries. Even in developed countries, high prices, mediocre performance and access restrictions often limit its uptake. Within individual countries, wide differences may exist between larger cities (often having multiple providers of broadband access) and some rural areas, where no broadband access may be available at all. The expansion of the availability of Internet access is a way to bridge the so-called digital divide.
Capitalization conventions
In formal usage, Internet is traditionally written with a capital first letter. The Internet Society, the Internet Engineering Task Force, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, the World Wide Web Consortium, and several other Internet-related organizations all use this convention in their publications. In English grammar, proper nouns are capitalized. Most newspapers, newswires, periodicals, and technical journals also capitalize the term. Examples include the New York Times, the Associated Press, Time, The Times of India, Hindustan Times and Communications of the ACM. In other cases, the first letter is often written small (internet), and many people are not aware of any convention of using a capital letter. Some argue that internet is the correct form. Since 2000, a significant number of publications have switched to using internet. Among them are The Economist, the Financial Times, the London Times, and the Sydney Morning Herald. As of 2005, most publications using internet appear to be located outside of North America although one American news source, Wired News, has adopted the lowercase spelling.
Leisure
The Internet has been a major source of leisure since before the World Wide Web, with entertaining social experiments such as MOOs being conducted on university servers, and humor-related USENET groups receiving much of the main traffic. Today, many Internet forums have sections devoted to neta; short cartoons in the form of Flash movies are also popular. The pornography and gambling industries have both taken full advantage of the World Wide Web, and often provide a significant source of advertising revenue for other Web sites. Although many governments have attempted to put restrictions on both industries' use of the Internet, this has generally failed to stop their widespread popularity. One main area of leisure on the Internet is multiplayer gaming. This form of leisure creates communities, bringing people of all ages and origins to enjoy the fast-paced world of multiplayer games. These range from MMORPG to first-person shooters, from role-playing games to online gambling. This has revolutionized the way many people interact and spend their free time on the Internet. Online gaming began with services such as GameSpy and MPlayer, which players of games would typically subscribe to. Non-subscribers were limited to certain types of gameplay or certain games. With the release of Diablo by Blizzard Entertainment, gamers were treated to a built in online game service that was free of charge. With Blizzard's next game, StarCraft, the gaming world saw an explosion in the numbers of players using the Internet to play multi-player games. StarCraft may have been the first non-MMO game in which most players utilized the online gameplay as opposed to the single-player gameplay. Online gaming has progressed so much in the last 10 years that gamers earn a living from being a professional at the subject by winning tournaments and prizes as well as signing sponsor deals. Because there is a large support for certain online games, a new community has been born for people modding games, where users edit games to add a whole new element to it. This is how games such as Counter-Strike were born from the Half-Life Gaming Engine. Cyberslacking has become a serious drain on corporate resources; the average UK employee spends 57 minutes a day surfing, according to a study by Peninsula Business Services[http://news.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?tid=914&id=1001802003].
A complex system
Many computer scientists see the Internet as a "prime example of a large-scale, highly engineered, yet highly complex system" (Willinger, et al). The Internet is extremely heterogeneous. (For instance, data transfer rates and physical characteristics of connections vary widely.) The Internet exhibits "emergent phenomena" that depend on its large-scale organization. For example, data transfer rates exhibit temporal self-similarity.
Marketing
The Internet has also become a big market, and the biggest companies today have grown by taking advantage of the efficient low-cost advertising and commerce through the Internet. It is the fastest way to spread information to a vast community of people all at once. The Internet has revolutionized shopping –– a person can order a CD online and receive it in the mail within a couple of days, or download it directly in some cases.
Criticism
Many hyperlinks are outdated as time takes its toll on the existence of URL weblinks. These weblinks are often times defunct and are retained as hyperlinks for extended timeframes as a result of laziness or being busy enough to be sidetracked away from updating webpages. This is a common hoax for people who are fans in the field of what those links provide them with/to.
See also

- List of Internet topics
- An internet of things
- Art on the Internet
- Bogon filtering
- Catenet
- Central ad server
- Cybersex
- Cyberzine
- Dark internet
- Democracy on the Internet
- Dynamics of the Internet
- Extranet
- File Sharing
- Flaming
- Friendship on the Internet
- Hacktivism or Hacker culture
- History of the Internet
- International Freedom of Expression eXchange - monitors Internet censorship around the world
- Humor on the Internet
- ICANN
- Internet 2
- Internet Archive
- Intranet
- Internet forum
- Internets (colloquialism)
- Internet traffic engineering
- NANOG
- Netiquette
- Network Mapping
- Online banking
- Open Directory Project
- Security breaches
- Slang on the Internet
- Trolls and trolling
- Videotex - an early communications technology
- Web browser
- Web hosting
- WebQuest
External links

General

- [http://www.channel101.com/ Internet TV Stations]
- [http://www.isoc.org/ The Internet Society (ISOC)]
- [http://www.techterms.org/internet.php Internet Dictionary] - Definitions of Internet-related terms
- [http://www.experienced-people.co.uk/1099-webmaster-glossary/ The Alternate Internet Glossary] (Humor)
- A [http://www.illusivecreations.com Calgary Web Design] company that has put together over 300 articles about the internet and web development. You can view them by going [http://www.illusivecreations.com/articles/ here].
- [http://www.clickz.com/stats/sectors/geographics/article.php/5911_151151 Internet access stats]
- [http://www.sharpened.net/glossary/ Glossary of Computer and Internet Terms]
- [http://scoreboard.keynote.com/scoreboard/Main.aspx?Login=Y&Username=public&Password=public Internet Health Report] from Keynote
- [http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm Internet World Stats]
Articles

- [http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/09/29/business/net.php "EU and U.S. clash over control of the Net" - International Herald Tribune article by Tom Wright]
- [http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.08/intro.html "10 Years that changed the world" - WiReD looks back at the evolution of the Internet over last 10 years]
- [http://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/digital-imprimatur/ John Walker: The Digital Imprimatur]
- [http://www.addressingtheworld.info addressingtheworld.info] - website accompanying a book (ISBN 0742528103) on the history of DNS
- [http://computer.howstuffworks.com/internet-infrastructure.htm How Stuff Works explanation of the Infrastructure of the Internet]
- [http://www.searchandgo.com/articles/internet/net-explained-1.php Internet Explained] Seven part article explaining the origins to the present and a future look at the Internet.
- [http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,64596,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_7 "It's Just the 'internet' Now" - Wired.com article by Tony Long]
History

- [http://www.isoc.org/internet/history/brief.shtml The Internet Society History Page]
- [http://www.internetvalley.com/archives/mirrors/cerf-how-inet.txt How the Internet Came to Be]
- [http://www.zakon.org/robert/internet/timeline/ Hobbes' Internet Timeline v7.0]
- [http://www.ciolek.com/PAPERS/e-scholarship2000.html Futures and Non-futures for Scholarly Internet. ]
- [http://www.lk.cs.ucla.edu/internet_history.html History of the Internet links]
- [http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc801.txt RFC 801, planning the TCP/IP switchover]
- [http://www.archive.org/ Internet Archive] - A searchable database of old cached versions of websites dating back to 1996
- A list of lectures, some of which relate to the Internet, from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is available [http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Comparative-Media-Studies/CMS-930Media--Education--and-the-MarketplaceFall2001/VideoLectures/index.htm here]. Of particular interest is lecture #3 The Next Big Thing: Video Internet which is delivered in Real Player format. The lecture gives a brief history of networking; discusses convergence between the internet/telephone/television networks; the expansion of broadband access; makes predictions about the future of delivery of video over the internet.
References

- Walter Willinger, Ramesh Govindan, Sugih Jamin, Vern Paxson, and Scott Shenker. (2002). Scaling phenomena in the Internet. In Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 99, suppl. 1, 2573 – 2580. Category:Communication Category:Digital media Category:Internet Category:Digital Revolution Category:Technology Category:Computer networks Category:Networks ko:인터넷 ms:Internet ja:インターネット simple:Internet th:อินเทอร์เน็ต fiu-vro:Internet

Internet forum

forum-based community as of April 2005 — powered by a modified version of phpBB.]] An Internet forum is a facility on the World Wide Web for holding discussions, or the web application software used to provide the facility. Web-based forums, which date from around 1995, perform a similar function as the dial-up bulletin boards and Internet newsgroups that were numerous in the 1980s and 1990s. A sense of virtual community often develops around forums that have regular users. Technology, computer games, and politics are popular areas for forum themes, but there are forums for a huge number of different topics. Internet forums are also commonly referred to as web forums, message boards, discussion boards, discussion groups, bulletin boards (but see also dial-up bulletin boards) fora (proper latin plural) or simply forums.

History

Early Internet forums could be described as web versions of newsgroups or electronic mailing lists; allowing people to post messages and comment on other messages. Later developments emulated the different newsgroups or individual lists, providing more than one forum, dedicated to a particular topic. As of late, forum software developers have actively encouraged the creation of open source plugins which can be integrated with the software as a means of expansion. Generally, these plugins provide more interaction for users and may add special features to the forum software.

Culture

Internet forums are prevalent in several developed countries. In terms of countable posts, Japan is far in the lead with over two million posts per day on their largest forum, 2channel. The United States does not have any one large forum, but instead several hundred thousand smaller forums, the largest of which are Gaia Online, IGN, Neoseeker, and GameFAQs. China, the Netherlands, and France are also home to hundreds of independent forums. Some countries such as Finland and Sweden do not have many prevalent forums despite having open and easily available Internet access. As of yet no study has been done on the prevalence of forums in countries around the world. Small forums are often based around a single subject. Usually there is an "off-topic" forum where users can post any items they find interesting (in Japanese, neta) or play "forum games". Larger Internet forums are in general more subject to public conflicts between users, leetspeak, and private jokes. Depending on the level of moderation there may also be conflicts between users and administrators. Like other forms of online communication, Internet forums are home to many heated exchanges and rivalries. Often, administrators ask users to conform to netiquette; if they leave a forum unmoderated it may degenerate and become useless for discussion.

Software features

The barebones definition of a forum is the ability for people to start threads and reply to other people's threads. (Someone posts a message which is visible to everyone, you read it and then have the option to post a reply which will also be visible to everyone, thus a discussion can build up without all users having to be online at the same time.) However, most forum software provides considerably more than this. Most forum software allows more than one forum to be created. These forums are containers for threads started by the community. Depending on the permissions of community members as defined by the board's administrator, they can post replies to existing threads and start new threads as they wish. Forum software can be broadly divided between those which allow visitors to post anonymously, and those which attribute posts to a registered username. For username-based software, visitors register using a username and a password, and possibly an email address for validation purposes. In these types of forums, the members are often able to customise both how their posts display to others (for example avatars, user profiles and signatures) and how the board appears to them (such as different themes). Username-based software may provide for anonymity by allowing visitors to post without registration. Anonymous forums may offer full anonymity or pseudonymity, but no registration. In order to provide the same set of features as registration-based forums, anonymous forums especially in Asia use a system of tripcodes, derived by encrypting a plaintext password put in the name field. Although blog comment pages are not Internet forums, they often use the anonymous system for the sake of simplicity. A forum administrator typically has the ability to edit, delete, move or otherwise modify any thread on the forum. These moderator privileges are often able to be delegated to other forum members. The reasons for having these abilities are often to allow peace to be maintained and the rules to be enforced. The ways in which the moderation system works depends on the board software—for example, they can be directly appointed by the board administrator or chosen by an automated process combined with meta-moderation (moderation of the moderators). Many other systems exist and the board administrator is free to choose rules for their own forums. Threads in a forum are either flat (posts are listed in chronological order) or threaded (each post is made in reply to a parent post). Sometimes, community members have a choice on how to display threads. Forum software packages are widely available on the Internet, and are written in a variety of programming languages, such as PHP, Perl, Java and ASP. The configuration and records of posts can be stored in text files or in a database. Each package offers a different variety of features, from the most basic providing text-only postings to more advanced packages offering multimedia support and formatting code (usually known as BBCode). Many packages can be integrated easily into an existing website to allow visitors to post comments on articles.

Comparison with other web applications

One significant difference between forums and electronic mailing lists is that mailing lists automatically deliver new messages to the subscriber, while forums require the member to visit the website, and check for new posts. Due to the possibility of members missing replies to threads they are interested in, many modern forums offer an "email notification" feature, where an email is automatically sent to all users who have chosen to be notified of new replies, informing them that a new post has been made. The main difference between newsgroups and forums is that additional software is usually required to participate in newsgroups, a newsreader. Visiting and participating in forums normally requires no additional software beyond the web browser. Forums, unlike wikis, do not allow people to edit other's messages. Some users, however, may be given this ability in order to moderate content (for example, if spam is posted to the forum). Unlike blogs, forums typically allow anyone to start a new discussion (known as a thread), or reply to an existing thread. The range of topics discussed on forums is typically wider—as a website running forum software may have more than one forum, each dedicated to a different topic. While many blogs allow visitors to post comments in reply, the number of people who can create entries is normally very limited, and the range of viewpoints and beliefs on a blog are also limited. Forums differ from chat rooms and instant messaging because they usually deal with one topic and personal exchanges are typically discouraged. Participants in Internet forums should realize that what they have to say will be public knowledge for years to come. For example, Google's Groups (formerly DejaNews) is an archive of Usenet articles dating back to 1981. Forum archives are sometimes the best way to find an answer to very obscure questions, such as how to fix a particular computer problem. Western-style forum software places a heavy amount of emphasis on identity, with user registration, custom titles and avatars being standard features. This makes the tone of discussion very different from the more anonymous 2channel style boards; the burdens of status and persona encourage, alternately, highly formal discourse and close personal relationships. The behavior of moderators shapes overall tendencies towards one direction or the other.

External links

- [http://www.dmoz.org/Computers/Internet/On_the_Web/Message_Boards/ Message Boards] in the Open Directory Project
- [http://www.dmoz.org/Computers/Internet/Cyberspace/Online_Communities/Directories/ Online Communities: Directories] in the Open Directory Project
- [http://groups.yahoo.com/ Yahoo Groups] Category:Groupware ja:電子掲示板 th:กระดานสนทนาออนไลน์

Usenet

Usenet is a distributed Internet discussion system that evolved from a general purpose UUCP network of the same name. It was conceived by Duke University graduate students Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis in 1979. Users, sometimes called Usenetters, read and post email-like messages (called "articles") to a number of distributed newsgroups, categories that resemble bulletin board systems in most respects. The medium is sustained among a large number of servers, which store and forward messages to one another. Usenet is of significant cultural importance in the networked world, having given rise to, or popularized, many widely recognized concepts and terms such as "FAQ" and "spam".

Introduction

Usenet is one of the oldest computer network communications systems still in widespread use. It was established in 1980 following experiments the previous year, over a decade before the World Wide Web was introduced and the general public was admitted to the Internet. It was originally conceived as a "poor man's ARPANET," employing UUCP to offer mail and file transfers, as well as announcements through the newly developed news software. This system, developed at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Duke University, was called USENET to emphasize its creators' hope that the USENIX organization would take an active role in its operation (Daniel et al, 1980). Today, almost all Usenet traffic is carried over the Internet. The current format and transmission of Usenet articles is very similar to that of Internet email messages. However, whereas email is usually used for one-to-one communication, Usenet is a one-to-many medium. The articles that users post to Usenet are organized into topical categories called newsgroups, which are themselves logically organized into hierarchies of subjects. For instance, [news:sci.math sci.math] and [news:sci.physics sci.physics] are within the sci hierarchy, for science. When a user subscribes to a newsgroup, the news client software keeps track of which articles have been read. When a user posts an article, it is initially only available on that user's news server. Each news server, however, talks to one or more other servers (its "newsfeeds") and exchanges articles with them. In this fashion, the article is copied from server to server and (if all goes well) eventually reaches every server in the network. The later peer-to-peer networks operate on a similar principle; but for Usenet it is normally the sender, rather than the receiver, who initiates transfers. Some have noted that this seems a monstrously inefficient protocol in the era of abundant high-speed network access. Usenet was designed for a time when networks were much slower, and not always available. Many sites on the original Usenet network would connect only once or twice a day to batch-transfer messages in and out. Today, Usenet has lost importance compared to mailing lists and weblogs. The difference from mailing lists, though, is that Usenet requires no personal registration with the group concerned (subscription is necessary only to keep track of which articles one has already read, and that information need not be stored on a remote server), that archives are always available, and that reading the messages requires no mail client, but a news client (included in most modern e-mail clients).

ISPs, news servers, and newsfeeds

Most Internet service providers, and many other Internet sites, operate news servers for their users to access. In early news implementations, the server and newsreader were a single program suite, running on the same system. Today, one uses separate newsreader client software—a program that resembles an email client (and is often integrated with one) but accesses Usenet servers instead. Not all ISPs run news servers. A news server is one of the most difficult Internet services to administer well, because of the complexity and data throughput involved. Some ISPs outsource news operation to specialist sites, which will usually appear to a user as though the ISP ran the server itself. Many sites carry a restricted newsfeed, with a limited number of newsgroups. Commonly omitted from such a newsfeed are foreign-language newsgroups and the alt.binaries hierarchy which largely carries software and erotica and, in the 21st century, accounts for over 99% of the article data. For those who have access to the Internet, but do not have access to a news server, Google Groups ([http://groups.google.com]) allows reading and posting of text news groups via the World Wide Web. Though this or other "news-to-Web gateways" are not always as easy to use as specialized newsreader software—especially when threads get long—they are often much easier to search. Users who lack access to an ISP news server can use Google Groups to access the [http://groups-beta.google.com/group/alt.free.newsservers alt.free.newsservers] newsgroup, which has information about open news servers. There are also Usenet providers that specialize in offering service to users whose ISPs do not carry news, or that carry a restricted feed. One list of such providers is available at [http://www.exit109.com/~jeremy/news/providers/providers.html Jeremy Nixon's list of Usenet providers]. See also news server operation for an overview of how news systems are implemented.

Newsreader clients

Newsgroups are typically accessed with special client software that connects to a news server. With the rise of the world wide web, web front-ends have sometimes been used to access newsgroups via the aforementioned news-to-web gateways. However, these gateways often provide limited features, and for that reason using a local client is still regarded as the best way to access newsgroups. Newsreader clients are available for all major operating systems and come in all shapes and sizes. Mail clients or "communication suites" also now commonly have an integrated newsreader. Often, however, these integrated clients are of low quality, e.g. incorrectly implementing Usenet protocols, standards and conventions. Many of these integrated clients, for example the one in Microsoft's Outlook Express, are often shunned because of their misbehavior.

Moderated and unmoderated newsgroups

A minority of newsgroups are moderated. That means that messages submitted by readers are not distributed to USENET, but instead are emailed to the moderators of the newsgroup, for approval. Moderated newsgroups have rules called charters. Moderators are persons whose job is to ensure that messages that the readers see in newsgroups conform to the charter of the newsgroup. Typically, moderators are appointed in the proposal for the newsgroup, and changes of moderators follow a succession plan. The job of the moderator is to receive submitted articles, review them, and inject approved articles so that they can be properly propagated worldwide. Such articles must bear the Approved: header line. Unmoderated newsgroups form the majority of USENET newsgroups, and messages submitted by readers for unmoderated newsgroups are immediately propagated for everyone to see. Creation of moderated newsgroups often becomes a hot subject of controversy, raising issues regarding censorship and the desire of a subset of users to form an intentional community.

Technical details

Usenet is a set of protocols for generating, storing and retrieving news "articles" (which resemble Internet mail messages) and for exchanging them among a readership which is potentially widely distributed. These protocols most commonly use a flooding algorithm which propagates copies throughout a network of participating servers. Whenever a message reaches a server, that server forwards the message to all its network neighbors that haven't yet seen the article. Only one copy of a message is stored per server, and each server makes it available on demand to the (typically local) readers able to access that server. Usenet was thus one of the first peer-to-peer applications, although in this case the "peers" are themselves servers that the users then access, rather than the users themselves being peers on the network. One difference between Usenet and newer peer-to-peer applications is that one can request the automated removal of a posting from the whole network by creating a cancel message, although due to a lack of authentication and resultant abuse, this capability is frequently disabled. Copyright holders may still request the manual deletion of infringing material using the provisions of World Intellectual Property Organization treaty implementations, such as the U.S. Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act.

Organization

The major set of worldwide newsgroups is contained within eight hierarchies, operated under consensual guidelines that govern their administration and naming. The current "Big Eight" are:
- comp.
- : computer-related discussions (comp.software, comp.sys.amiga)
- misc.
- : Miscellaneous topics (misc.education, misc.forsale, misc.kids)
- news.
- : Discussions and announcements about news (meaning Usenet, not current events) (news.groups, news.admin)
- rec.
- : Recreation and entertainment (rec.music, rec.arts.movies)
- sci.
- : Science related discussions (sci.psychology, sci.research)
- soc.
- : Social discussions (soc.college.org, soc.culture.african)
- talk.
- : Talk about various controversial topics (talk.religion, talk.politics)
- humanities.
- : Fine arts, literature, and philosophy (humanities.classics, humanities.design.misc) (Note: the asterisks are used as wildmat patterns, examples follow in parentheses) See also Great Renaming. The alt.
- hierarchy is not subject to the procedures controlling groups in the Big Eight, and it is as a result less organized. However, groups in the alt.
- hierarchy tend to be more specialized or specific—for example, there might be a newsgroup under the Big Eight that contains discussions about children's books, but a group in the alt hierarchy may be dedicated to one specific author of children's books. Binaries are posted in alt.
- , making it the largest of all the hierarchies. Many other hierarchies of newsgroups are distributed alongside these. Regional and language-specific hierarchies such as japan.
- and ne.
- serve specific regions such as Japan and New England. Companies such as Micros