Signal Boost: Trolls in the Big Leagues

[lolmac]

I follow some blogs sporadically, some regularly, particularly John Scalzi's blog Whatever, from which I have learned many fine and lovely things. Scalzi often posts about writing (being a writer himself), and his comments are a fine combination of pithy and valuable. In particular, he posts about the business of being a writer, and surviving as a

Comments

[idlewild_]

I'm so impressed by your writing about trolls that I'm thinking of including your writing in a prestigious writing about trolls anthology. It's hard-bound and features gold leaf and only the best writers about trolling. Your personal copy would only be fifty dollars, but you're welcome to buy more for your friends and family. Think of all the exposure you will get! We will even include a photograph of you for only a small extra fee.

You're totally right; hobbyist writers are easy pickings for scammers... I mean, not that I am a non-hobbyist writer, but mama always taught me that a writer gets paid for her work, not the other way round. Writer Beware looks like a great resource!

[lolmac]

You are fortunate in your mama's lessons. Most of us didn't have writerly mamas.

Can I use the lovely book about trolling to hit trolls over the head?

[idlewild_]

For $50 you get all the awesome troll-whomping power of a perfectly bound* book.

*Perfect Binding also guarantees that your trolls will be gently showered with pages.

[lolmac]

Perfect Binding [TM] is the trademark work of Perfect Binding Press, owned by Peter Perfect LLC. We guarantee that, somewhere in the myriad possible worlds, there is one in which your binding really was done perfectly.

[campylobacter]

"Caveat clickor on that link: the site will make your eyes bleed and your head asplode."

Whoah, no kidding! CENTERED TEXT IS SO LEGIT.

"Boycotted Authors list"

Yeah, not much cred there as a "supportive" community.

"And if you ever, ever have a nibble from someone who claims they'll get you published if you'll only give them money, or sign away your rights in a damaging contract"

hnnnnnnggg I wanna troll these trolls sooooo bad.

PS: I lurked around some more on trolls' The Write Agenda; it's an incoherent jumble of confusing links and keyword farming, without even an attempt to fake a community by having sock accounts leave comments. As a link farm, it's rather a failure; a Google search for "Victoria Strauss" doesn't return the hate blog in the top 100 SERP.

[lolmac]

Well, nobody claimed they were SEO-savvy competent trolls.

I suspect that the "Geez, look at these dolts" posts on Whatever and Making Light (last April) are their highest-profile Net moments to date. (I quite like the term 'link farm'; hadn't heard that one before.)

I confess I slaver at the thought of them getting a fine dose of Campyness.

[campylobacter]

"Link farms" date back from 1999 when Black Hat SEOers could cheat & build a bunch of junk sites that linked to each other to take advantage of "link popularity".

Looks like I'll have to try harder to troll "TWANG":
http://pics.livejournal.com/campylobacter/pic/001h5xhh

[thothmes]

Just not a good day for eye-bleeding. Think I'll wait a few days, or maybe check in on Ebola Awareness Day.

Ooops. Joke in bad taste is in Bad Taste. I think that the trolls are affecting me even from here!

My dad's a writer, and so I was brought up on the concept that if they want you to pay them instead of the other way around, or if they charge you for things like advertising, or a small number of author copies of the book, then they are not legit. The other side of the family is chock-a-block full of lawyers, so I always read the fine print and assume that anything too good to be true is a scam

[lolmac]

My encounters with con artists taught me that con artists are usually very good at what they do, having devoted all their energies to developing that skill instead of becoming actual human beings. Also, the con artists one meets are likely to be the successful ones, which means they're good at it, because the unsuccessful ones don't last.

Like bullies, abusers and rapists, part of being a successful con artist is having good instincts for selecting vulnerable targets. Not being vulnerable can be extremely effective, if one can manage it. The flip side of this is that someone who's good at not being vulnerable in most areas can be suddenly and thoroughly caught out in one vulnerable area. This has happened to me: it gave me an added respect for the skill and instinct (but not the humanity) of professional con artists, which helped me recover from the chagrin.