To ask about ‘reverse’ and ‘trolls’?

[Naranja]

I often see people say ‘is this a reverse’ in response to threads, what does this mean? Is it when someone is pretending to have an issue with their ‘DH’ but they are actually the DH?

And likewise people often say ‘this is a troll’ but I’m not sure I would ever notice anything is off - what are the things to look out for?? People say about the ‘poo troll’ etc - is that someone trying to get people to share private stories for their own pleasure? How can you avoid responding to a troll?

Also the biscuit (?) symbol some people post? What is that?

Are there any other MN things I should understand?

@MuchBetterNow I think I’ve seen one along those lines when I just used to read and not post. I don’t get what the point of that is - for the OP to get an ego boost from people saying nice things about their kids? Probably just answered my own question.

I can spot the begging ones - it literally gets worse with each post - ill, alone, no friends or relatives able to help, no electric or gas..if it goes on long enough it starts contradicting itself, and also the immediate refuting of solutions as soon as they’re posted.

These really annoy me because they’re exploiting kind-heartedness and working on the assumption that a lot of MN posters are middle class/financially comfortable.

I can’t spot a reverse! And not brilliant at spotting trolls unless they’re the fetish/sexually motivated ones.

The thing about teenagers in class not being allowed to go out of lessons appeared on the BHFforum a couple of weeks ago - they got a couple of responses in relation to their post but about 20 saying ‘and your heart problem is...?!’

There have been a few troll threads which are subtle to begin with and draw lots of attention and then turn into a soap opera with cliffhangers. Two that spring to mind was a doorbell being rung at 2am for several nights in a row and another one about a garden ornament being moved mysteriously. They both went on for pages before being pulled.

@MuchBetterNow
The ones with cliffhanger potential are the ones that I find the hardest to spot. Often CF friends.

Yes MadamBee, CF threads seem to be the new black right now and are full of cliffhangers, I skim through them but they're getting a bit samey 😁.

My favouritister are parking threads. I think there could be a whole board of Parking/neighbour issues.

Having experienced both I like knowing I’m not alone (I moved away from mine luckily but it’s still very fresh. I think I will be boring people about it when I’ve forgotten everything else).

I have to admit I’m getting better at spotting the trolls but I’m still a bit useless :/ as for the fantasists - why do they always say they have twins? I’ve never wrapped my head around that one... probably because I do have twins (DD and DS) and it does my head in to think I might be bundled in with them sometimes whenever I mention my DC!

As for reverses I’m pretty good at spotting those now - as awful as it is, I found being a bit suspicious of every post to begin with, the best way.

If it’s Goady - ignore
If there’s only one post from the OP and no follow up in a fairly decent sized thread - ignore
If the post is asking for intimate details that you’re not comfortable sharing IGNORE (like one I saw a while back discussing a teenage girls want to have a bikini wax and asking others if their teenage daughters were allowed —— not envy!)

The definition of a troll as someone who posts lies is unique to MN BTW.

Not true.

From an academic paper by Judith Donath (pub. 1999):

Trolling is a game about identity deception, albeit one that is played without the consent of most of the players.

I think some of the threads have a grain of truth in them but when posters start begging for updates and the threads run to.several threads and becomes more and more elaborate I think the Op gets off on the attention.

There's a persistent troll who starts threads in AIBU frequently and is called the "popular" troll

God yes, the popular troll. He's so fucking obvious, you can tell just by reading the thread title it's him. Even weirder is, I just can't see what he gets out of it? Teenage bad girl/boy fantasist or something? The persistence is really sinister.

@TurpentineWine I mean I clearly had some idea about what a reverse is and I said that in my post, and I gathered that the biscuit wasn’t a very nice response but I was just intrigued to get some actual explanations from people who have been on MN longer - not that weird is it?

How do people pronounce 'troll'?

Is it a long 'o' as in 'role' or a short 'o' as in hot?

@TurpentineWine surely the whole of AIBU could be called ‘unconfident’ as the whole point is asking questions you’re not sure of/not sure if you’re being unreasonable?

I just thought it would be interesting to see people’s responses and to get an idea as to spotting a troll or a reverse.

Sorry for being so dim...

How do people pronounce 'troll'?

I say it like 'doll', but when I hear it on the news or whatever, it seems everyone pronounces it like 'role'. I just assumed that's because everyone is posher than me

I’m interested in this too. Two threads today (or one was possibly Yesterday) have been deleted because the poster had been previously banned. I honestly would never have thought it to be a troll. I genuinely believed them and also really felt for one of them...coming back to check if they were ok.

It’s frustrating.

I gathered that the biscuit wasn’t a very nice response but I was just intrigued to get some actual explanations from people who have been on MN longer

I'm with you on the biscuit one OP. I learned pretty quickly that it wasn't a good thing based on the responses it gets, but no idea why. How the heck did a biscuit come to be basically a "fuck you"?

I believe the biscuit emoji for being boring goes back to when Gordon Brown did a Q &A here and wouldn't reveal his favourite biscuit.
I could be completely wrong though

I think it’s harder to spot trolls Than ppl realise and the poster who said “they give it away by changing things from thread to thread” that’s not entirely true! Reason some ppl might do it is they have friends n family on mumsnet and don’t want to Reveal things that will identify them.

I think the trolls are probably teenage kids with nothing better to do as I doubt most mums (Or dads) would have time to set up fake stories! What do u lot think?

I thought biscuit emoji was your “taking the biscuit” as in “taking the p**s”.

My real life friend plucked up courage to post on here, about something really horrible she had been through and was still going through. She desperately needed advice. ‘Ask in mumsnet’ I said. ‘Anything you’ve got to say, they’ve seen before, and they’ll know what you should do’. No poo involved, no toilets, but her thread was reported, people called her a troll, and I think her post was taken down. The sad thing was it was all absolutely true.

Oh good grief I'm expecting twins imminently, will I forever be thought of as a troll??

Generally whenever it involves “let’s call her”

Or “I’m going to speak to them in an hour”