Troll organization - Definition and Overview

A troll organization or troll gang is a group of internet trolls who associate together, share ideas and resources, and may act in a concerted manner. They sometimes adopt a name for their group, and on occasion elements of an organizational structure. This is difficult, as trolls often object ideologically to organized structures and cooperation, and disapprove of agreeing with anyone.

A number of different online media have led to the formation of such organizations, some short-lived and others more persistent. In past years, Usenet had a set of troll news groups, usually taken over from unused newsgroups ostensibly devoted to other topics, such as alt.syntax.tactical (sometimes called trollgnaws) where members would discuss trolling techniques and organize raids of other newsgroups. Similar organized raids on internet forums are known as forum invasions (see Meow Wars), the purpose being to offend a particular group, to simply enjoy the reaction such invasions provoke, or to attack the signal-to-noise ratio of the other newsgroups and forums.

On the Slashdot website, a subculture with several such organizations has formed (see Slashdot trolling phenomena), some devoted to moderating each others' posts upwards and others to propagating new types of posts.

List of troll organizations

• Gay Nigger Association of America (GNAA) (trolls Slashdot, Kuro5hin and other technology communities)
• The Cabal (sometimes 'Committee') of Logged in Trolls was a group of trolls active around 2002 on Slashdot. Their primary objective was to get first posts. The League of Anonymous Cowards was formed in response.
• Trollkore (trolls Slashdot)
• SALJ ("Stairs aren't lost")
• The Trolluminati (troll secret society. Organized mayhem by a group of elite trolls whose roots go back to the days of the phone phreaks. Responsible for causing more anguish in chatrooms and forums than any other group. They use the same heirarchy system as the freemasons and are said to control other groups such as The_Trolliban.