WP: Scientists have figured out how to tell when someone is an online troll

[Qutzupalotl]

The researchers -- Justin Cheng, Cristian Danescu-Niculescu-Mizil and Jure Leskovec -- waded through 18 months of user activity in the comment sections of CNN.com, conservative political news site Breitbart.com, and gaming site IGN.com looking for antisocial activity. Using data provided by commenting platform Disqus, they were eventually able to identify what they called "future banned users" -- commenters who were later blocked from the site for bad behavior.

Those users, they found, tended to focus their comments on a small number of stories and were more likely to post things otherwise irrelevant to the overall conversation. Trolls' behavior also tended to get worse over time, according to the researchers -- and they were generally successful at getting a rise out of those in an online community.

"They receive more replies than average users, suggesting that they might be successful in luring others into fruitless, time-consuming discussions," the researchers said.

The researchers used their findings to design a program that could predict who would be banned in the future -- looking at things like post content, user activity and community and moderator responses. And they had some success: They determined that they could predict with more than 80 percent certainty if a user would later be banned -- and only needed five to 10 of a user's posts to make a prediction.

....

Unsurprisingly, research suggests these uncivil commenters tend to have some pretty dark personality traits. Research led by University of Manitoba graduate student Erin Buckels published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences last year found links between online trolling and narcissism, Machiavellianism, psychopathy and sadism.

More at link:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2015/04/22/scientists-have-figured-out-how-to-tell-when-someone-is-an-online-troll/?tid=sm_tw

[onehandle]

1. DU Gun Trolls, nailed. nt

[1000words]

2. Best DU troll was carlos jiacinto

I lurked a lot back then.

[Art_from_Ark]

3. I never understood why he was banned as a troll

[1000words]

6. I don't understand half the things that go on here

All I know is, "carlos" could push buttons. Perhaps he simply wore out his welcome.

[Art_from_Ark]

8. He said that he had actually contributed to the campaign of a Congressional candidate

I was supporting back in 2001, so I was a bit surprised when he was banned.

[1000words]

9. I thought I remember him making some kind of grand admission ...

that sealed his fate. Don't remember what, it's been a long time.

[shenmue]

4. Discovery: some people suck

[Qutzupalotl]

7. I had to make sure I included this quote:

"links between online trolling and narcissism, Machiavellianism, psychopathy and sadism."

[KittyWampus]

10. Thus, when a circular firing squad commences, don't participate.

[AngryAmish]

11. JOOOOOOOOOOOSSSSEEEE

Trolls tend to bang on about Jews a lot.