The United States Anti-Trolling Agency (USATA) today announced an amnesty for all Lance Armstrong fanboys who provide a full confession that they have been aiding and abetting the reputation of one of the world’s most famous serial dopers.
“We know this is a very difficult step for fanboys to take, admitting that they actually bought the Armstrong lie for so long” acknowledged Travis Trueblood, head of USATA. “We want to make this painful and humiliating process as easy as possible. Therefore, we propose not simply to reduce the usual two year ban for trolling on internet forums, but eliminate it completely. In return for a confession that they were indeed fanboys, these former Armstrong supporters will be eligible immediately to participate fully in internet forums with all the other posters.”
Announcement of the amnesty was met with enthusiastic support. “This is such a relief,” said a poster formerly known as WonderDance, who said he was going to change his handle to EdwardArmstrongPoe. “I never really wanted to cheat and lie in my posts, but I had to make a living, you know, and all the other fanboys were doing the same thing. For people who posted what they knew was really going on, it was never a level playing field. I mean, sure, we all know he doped and should have been suspended for it a long time ago, but how much do they pay you for saying that on an internet forum?”
Another former Armstrong supporter, Sacre Jaune, commented that he was surprised how easy it was to come out, once he took the first step. “It wasn’t as hard as I thought it was going to be. Just the other day, someone on my group ride said, don’t you think Lance Armstrong is the greatest cyclist in history, winning all those races through focus and effort? I just said no. Amazingly, the sky did not fall in. I felt liberated.”
Trueblood said he thought most fanboys would take advantage of the amnesty, because they were going to get caught sooner or later, anyway. “The fanboy tests have gotten so much better,” he explained. “It used to be a lot easier to beat them. You just said all the right buzzwords, like “even Eddy doped”, “it was a very dirty era”, “they all did it”, and so on. Now, however, we have advanced software that analyzes every word of everyone’s post, comparing that with a baseline developed from their posts in the past. The software can detect the slightest deviation from pure hatred of Armstrong—even a single word out of place. If you exceed the 99th percentile, we know you are a fanboy. It’s a scientific fact.”
Trueblood predicted that exposing all the fanboys will make internet cycling forums much more exciting again. “The forums had become so predictable. There would be a discussion of doping, then Armstrong’s name would come up, and boom, posts would take off. Incredible numbers were being put out, like 10-15 posts per day. Everyone knows that level is impossible to sustain without trolling. Now the discussions are much more competitive. Post counts are down. No one knows where the discussion will go or who will prevail.”
Not everyone agrees that the amnesty will stop all trolling, though. Some are very concerned over a relatively recent phenomenon, known among forum members as micro-trolling. “It’s very subtle,” explained poster Le Sac Blanc. “You write a post that appears completely clean, but hidden in it is a comment that could be interpreted, under some conditions, as pro-Armstrong. It doesn’t trip the tests because its meaning is ambiguous, and it fades quickly into a background of unrelated issues. It’s very difficult to catch. When we ask the poster to explain himself, he says he was sick that day, which caused his post to deviate slightly from normal values. And of course, this is one of the biggest problems with our testing system: it’s extremely difficult to distinguish someone who is genuinely duped by Armstrong from someone who is suffering from some physiological disorder. Even the best tests can’t always separate the two.”
“We know this is a very difficult step for fanboys to take, admitting that they actually bought the Armstrong lie for so long” acknowledged Travis Trueblood, head of USATA. “We want to make this painful and humiliating process as easy as possible. Therefore, we propose not simply to reduce the usual two year ban for trolling on internet forums, but eliminate it completely. In return for a confession that they were indeed fanboys, these former Armstrong supporters will be eligible immediately to participate fully in internet forums with all the other posters.”
Announcement of the amnesty was met with enthusiastic support. “This is such a relief,” said a poster formerly known as WonderDance, who said he was going to change his handle to EdwardArmstrongPoe. “I never really wanted to cheat and lie in my posts, but I had to make a living, you know, and all the other fanboys were doing the same thing. For people who posted what they knew was really going on, it was never a level playing field. I mean, sure, we all know he doped and should have been suspended for it a long time ago, but how much do they pay you for saying that on an internet forum?”
Another former Armstrong supporter, Sacre Jaune, commented that he was surprised how easy it was to come out, once he took the first step. “It wasn’t as hard as I thought it was going to be. Just the other day, someone on my group ride said, don’t you think Lance Armstrong is the greatest cyclist in history, winning all those races through focus and effort? I just said no. Amazingly, the sky did not fall in. I felt liberated.”
Trueblood said he thought most fanboys would take advantage of the amnesty, because they were going to get caught sooner or later, anyway. “The fanboy tests have gotten so much better,” he explained. “It used to be a lot easier to beat them. You just said all the right buzzwords, like “even Eddy doped”, “it was a very dirty era”, “they all did it”, and so on. Now, however, we have advanced software that analyzes every word of everyone’s post, comparing that with a baseline developed from their posts in the past. The software can detect the slightest deviation from pure hatred of Armstrong—even a single word out of place. If you exceed the 99th percentile, we know you are a fanboy. It’s a scientific fact.”
Trueblood predicted that exposing all the fanboys will make internet cycling forums much more exciting again. “The forums had become so predictable. There would be a discussion of doping, then Armstrong’s name would come up, and boom, posts would take off. Incredible numbers were being put out, like 10-15 posts per day. Everyone knows that level is impossible to sustain without trolling. Now the discussions are much more competitive. Post counts are down. No one knows where the discussion will go or who will prevail.”
Not everyone agrees that the amnesty will stop all trolling, though. Some are very concerned over a relatively recent phenomenon, known among forum members as micro-trolling. “It’s very subtle,” explained poster Le Sac Blanc. “You write a post that appears completely clean, but hidden in it is a comment that could be interpreted, under some conditions, as pro-Armstrong. It doesn’t trip the tests because its meaning is ambiguous, and it fades quickly into a background of unrelated issues. It’s very difficult to catch. When we ask the poster to explain himself, he says he was sick that day, which caused his post to deviate slightly from normal values. And of course, this is one of the biggest problems with our testing system: it’s extremely difficult to distinguish someone who is genuinely duped by Armstrong from someone who is suffering from some physiological disorder. Even the best tests can’t always separate the two.”
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