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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

See all MNHQ comments on this thread

What telltale signs make you suspect 'troll'?

99 replies

LikeDylanInTheMovies · 12/08/2016 13:57

Just to be clear, I'm not advocating troll hunting but what makes you suspect a thread is the work of a bridge dweller and makes you give it a wide berth and/or report to MNHQ? I was thinking quite often the post just seems a little off or implausible and I've tried to think what often arouses my suspicions.

A few things that set my spidey senses tingling are:

  1. The tone is at odds with the material/dilemma or shifts dramatically across the thread.

  2. Events move too quickly and the revelations come thick and fast.

  3. A 'twist' in the last few lines of the post (to make up an example a long post asking for advice on 5* hotels in the Maldives and in the last line saying something along the lines of 'I can only go the last week of August as I 3rd September is my signing on day at the dole.')

  4. Anything to do with a well known sexual fetish (pissing/shitting/bukkake) I'm a bit suspicious about.

This isn't about any particular thread or poster and one of those things on its own isn't enough to set alarms ringing in my head, but what makes other posters start scratching their chin and think 'hmmmm chinny reckon'?

OP posts:
PeppaPigTastesLikeBacon · 12/08/2016 20:16

Thanks to dial up internet my eyes didn't have to see things like blue waffle growing up Grin

Champagneformyrealfriends · 12/08/2016 20:20

peppa think I commented on that one too in the night-I'm blaming sleep deprivation Grin

PeppaPigTastesLikeBacon · 12/08/2016 20:29

The message disappointed me. I comment on ones I think are trolls to see what HQ will come up with Grin

Champagneformyrealfriends · 12/08/2016 20:29

I do that too Grin I have a very boring life.

liz70 · 12/08/2016 20:36

People whose username describes their dilemma e.g. helpiminlovewithmyneighboursferret are always pretty suspect IMO, if not E.

DelicatePreciousThing1 · 12/08/2016 20:49

Surprised this thread hasn't been pulled. It's inviting trouble.

CurlyMoo · 12/08/2016 21:11

When they mention en passant that they are in Brazil for the Olympics.

HermioneJeanGranger · 12/08/2016 21:18

helpiminlovewithmyneighboursferret

Grin
YouAreMyRain · 12/08/2016 21:22

This thread will only help the trolls

Catsick36 · 12/08/2016 21:25

Good grief!! Wish I hadn't googled it now

PinkissimoAndPearls · 12/08/2016 21:28

"Hairy toes, a sallow complexion and hair with a texture between candy floss and wire wool.

Dead giveaway IMHO"

Where do I hand myself in?

PinkissimoAndPearls · 12/08/2016 21:30

I'm ignoring the bukkake (was going to follow that with bollocks but decided against it) as I'm not fucking googling anything else from MN. I still haven't recovered from fucking dragon butter.

yeOldeTrout · 12/08/2016 21:37

A series of unlikely events, touching on topics that are especially sensitive or set off anxieties & hysteria.

EnthusiasmDisturbed · 12/08/2016 21:48

Lots of replies are a good give away

Either by those totally sucked in or others outing the troll then the fall out from that

CaptainCrunch · 12/08/2016 21:50

The over investors are troll bread and butter, if they didn't come online with all the "couldn't sleep for thinking about you op" trolls wouldn't have anything to troll about or to. Mn is irritating with its "no trollhunting" schtick as the over invested then get all self righteous and keep perpetuating the silly nonsense until someone sees sense and deletes it.

ChaseAvenal · 12/08/2016 21:50

OpenMe troll originally meant someone who fabricates details of their life or spouts views they don't have to irritate or otherwise provoke a reaction, which is the definition MN uses. Unfortunately the media started using it to mean 'anyone who's mean online' which leads to confusion. If someone says something vitriolic and means it, they're not a troll, they're just an assholes.

Bukakke is a Japanese word so originally would be pronounced boo-kah-keh (or kar-kay, but the sound is a little softer than that) but most English speakers tend to say boo-kah-key.

ChaseAvenal · 12/08/2016 21:51

*an asshole... For some reason my phone autocorrected to the plural...Hmm

GinandTits · 12/08/2016 21:54

It always reads like a soap opera script to me. Always like it's a "set" story being told.

Wayfarersonbaby · 12/08/2016 22:02

Something about the tone and the way it fits (or doesn't fit) with the narrative. e.g. a tone which is slightly too jaunty somehow or too contrived. Or too calm given the purported situation of the thread. Thread updates that seem to arrive too neatly, providing a nice narrative that would be a little too neat for real life. Situations that someone wouldn't normally turn to their phone to post on an internet forum in the middle of, with the timing of events a little too conveniently spaced to allow well-constructed updates.

Basically, anything that doesn't quite ring true - where you think "If I was in this situation, would I be doing this?" e.g. in the middle of a series of traumatic events, somehow having the time, presence of mind and desire to get online and start posting. I mean there is a reason why you don't tend to see many people whip out their phone and start writing long updates on it in the middle of a fast-moving and stressful situation, such as their child being diagnosed with a serious disease in real time or the police arriving to check out something odd.

The recent one about the odd email was really entertaining as a piece of narrative, but clearly just not real. You can see why people want it to be, it's like a film playing out in real time so you're waiting for the narrative "payoff". But if you check with your instinct, often on a troll thread you know deep down that "nah, this isn't really very plausible. It's not what people do in situations like this." Equally, watch out for things moving too fast or at odd times in medical, police or legal threads. A troll can do all the research they like on blogs and so on, but if they are attempting to pull off a full "sick child" thread or similar there will always be gaps in the narrative or implausibilities that don't ring true to people who really do have experience in those areas, and which the troll doesn't even know they're getting wrong.

But first, watch out for the tone. Posting tone is difficult, even impossible to fake, so trolls reading this thread aren't really going to benefit, because what gives them away is something a bit indefinable about the rightness or wrongness of the tone which can't really be quantified.

CaptainCrunch · 12/08/2016 22:26

Word re posting "tone". It's pretty obvious when someone sets out a devastating scenario along the lines of "So!!!! I'm just getting over dm's brutal murder and very much looking forward to my upcoming wedding!!!!" Those exclamation marks and "so's" give it all away.

PeppaPigTastesLikeBacon · 12/08/2016 22:29

Googled dragon butter.
When. Will. I. Learn

GinandTits · 12/08/2016 22:53

Trolls will go on always with or without this thread. Without showing my age I've used forums a long time, been on very popular ones that have gone poof and you ALWAYS get the buggers. I can usually spot but every so often I kick myself when I see a deletion message...

LikeDylanInTheMovies · 12/08/2016 23:05

I think you've nailed it wayfarer tone and pace are soften a dead giveaways and tone and pace are very difficult to fake and only the most determined troll has the patience to pull off a disputed inheritance or a complex civil case in real time (years).

You are also right that it is implausible someone would 'live post' a blow by blow account of a fast moving and traumatic event.

That's why I think this thread isn't giving anything away because for a troll thread to work it has to be outside the ordinary, be fast paced and have a 'live' feel with a sense of immediate peril to it with a neat ending in fairly short time.

To make the thread realistic they just wouldn't get the attention and reaction they crave. No one would follow it over years.

OP posts:
TheIncredibleBookEatingManchot · 13/08/2016 00:02

Hairy toes, a sallow complexion and hair with a texture between candy floss and wire wool.

Looks in mirror

Trots off to report self to MNHQ

I agree with pps who say it's the tone of the OP that's usually the first give away, but it's not always easy to define exactly what's wrong with it, it just seems not quite right. It's not till the OP starts piling on shocking detail after shocking detail every time the thread seems to be waning or inconsistencies start appearing in the story that I really start thinking, "yep, definitely a troll."

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