Flame Warriors ~ View topic

Guest

Page Wideners are a specific, malicious breed of Propeller Head who exploit flaws in internet browsers or web site programming to disrupt the display of a forum. Greatly effective on phpBB forums and in HaloScan blog commenting systems.

See:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Page_widening
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_troll

You could write up a better descriptor for this one, I'm sure.

Clueless Newb Joined: 03 Feb 2005 Posts: 44

Sorry, looks as though FireFox purged my cache (including cookies) while I was typing. "Guest" above was me. I was also going to make note of Scrollers, their cousins, who work to disrupt discussion by making posts of extreme vertical length as opposed to horizontal. Scroller posts don't break web page margins, but can be extremely annoying if they force you to scroll down 100 page lengths during a debate.

Both (Page Wideners and Scrollers) are usually cleaned up quickly by moderators or admins.

A couple of examples of these prats, in Mike's last guest book.

Oh to keep logged in, just refresh a page every so often, I refresh the main forum page, which does the trick.
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The important thing is knowing who owns the fence

Clueless Newb Joined: 03 Feb 2005 Posts: 44

I'm afraid these are still Propeller Heads, despite being subests of it. These might be good for expanding the description of Propeller Head, though.
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Clueless Newb Joined: 03 Feb 2005 Posts: 44

Hrm. Yes, this definitely would make a good addition as a tactic. It's certainly an obnoxious one.
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You dont need to be a Propeller head to pull this one off, even Newbie can do it.

Ive used this on three occasions as a form of revenge against posters in silly threads. You type up a long mesage, remove all the spaces then post it. I only did it after they badmouthed Red Pandas (Cute fluffy animal).

In a later post before the admin comes in and fixes your post up, post a transparent gif thats one pixel tall and 63000 pixels across at the end of one of your posts which keeps the problem and has everyone wondering whats going on.

If you do this after someone else has done the text you can easily start people pounding on them, and remove it at a later date, long after that page has been left behind where few people except guests and those that are browsing the archives will notice the edit, nor will they be able to provide any proof it was you who made the page so wide.

A diabolical form of revenge, and a good way to kill a thread. I have only used them on forums where silly is the norm, and anything serious quickly gets hijacked and sent into a discussion full of witty jabs about other posters. If you are operating on a forum that abhors edit stamps you can also lay in the image multiple times in a thread by posting, waiting, responding, going back to first post and placing the image.

Edited twice: first time for clarity, second time because i spotted another thing that needed fixing just after i clicked submit.

First edit Thu Feb 03, 2005 4:20 pm approx

Hmmm, hard one - just about every thing someone does is a sort of tactic in some respect.

These guys are really just idiots who know more than they should, which isn't really saying too much for their abilities. What sets them apart from Propeller Head, is they do not fight like Propeller Head (if at all) I'm sure a fair dinkum Propeller Head would be heard to mutter "Simple things amuse small minds", whilst vainly probing for an open port.

I think a warrior needs to be developed and labeled accordingly, that would sum up a few suggestions that have been put foward already, these are warriors who disrupt the normal flow of a forum through art, signiture or other means not yet described.

Includes any warrior that -

Posts messages or links, that are designed to punish any unfortunate, still on a dial-up connection.

Assumes everyone uses Flash.

Has bought a copy of "How to F a forum for dummies" which includes apt examples of upsetting the forum format. A run down on large signatures and disguising V large jpegs as ART in your posts. (see the suggestion John Hancock)

read or aquired the latest "Invoking a Forum Event - Deathwish spells for the really stupid"

Especially; has read many times over "How to fake lofty stupidity in 10 easy steps"

Oh well, I'm about to roost, so I'm not really in a serious sort of mood and the above isn't a serious suggestion, but you get my drift. I have seen a few warriors it fits.

Where am I at. Well I was trying for stealth mode, mainly to avoid the pest around my locale. [Removed not so cryptic clue]

OK now I worked out wher you are, to the east is the capital of the state, I am 13 -14 hrs North, near the coast.
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The important thing is knowing who owns the fence

I think these would be better if they were rewritten as tactics. Most people who learn one of these obnoxious things will usually shop around for another as soon as it is blocked.
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Every now and again I'm with irritus. This is a tactic, albeit a disruptive one.
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The Average Woman Would Rather Have Beauty Than Brains Because The Average Man Can See Better Than He Can Think

Awww, just yankin' yer chain, guy, I think you're closer to the truth than I am most times.
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The Average Woman Would Rather Have Beauty Than Brains Because The Average Man Can See Better Than He Can Think

Its a feeble warrior / forum type, a very minor one.

How many warriors arn't a tactic?

If you need convincing, just sit and think what defines each warrior. It comes down to motive and action, each are not going to employ the same tactic. The wannabe warrior types have figured it out, but are unable to pull it off correctly. When they fine tune the tactic the said warrior uses, they then become a fully fledged warrior.

These sort of warriors might be in the initial stages of learning to become a Propeller Head. The suggestion of a forum type is valid, as though the majority could do what they do, it's the $%$^ stupid ones that actually do this type of stuff day in, day out. (Till their account is deleted or whatever) They seem to love finding guestbooks or comment pages, but improvements (because of them??) have seen a decrease in this sort of rot.
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The important thing is knowing who owns the fence

I think warriors are more an expression of a strategy and a motive. These are one-shot tactics. They're great tactic descriptions, don't get me wrong, but too specific to be warriors. This did inspire me, though. I've created a warrior to incorporate people who use these simple tactics as well as script kiddies called Skunk.
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Yes thanks I "skimed"over the skunk, needs a bit I think, but I'll have a better read latter on, perhaps tommorow.

P.W and S'er. The warrior that uses simple little on shot tactics, is a warrior, for they fact they are very bothersome, and web design had to take into account of these little shits. Some warriors do the same by accident, which is not a tactic.

It is specific as the original label defines.

I think there needs to be a label change, and on a serious note, take into account my not so serious suggestion. Then it could include all the idiots who thrill themselves and mates, with upsetting the normal flow af a forum. As they are kids, its hard to hate them for doing that sort of thing, and many warriors will try and impress them, it's not the done thing.

Usually the sods are ignored for a start, but soon find their posts heavily pruned if they persist.
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The important thing is knowing who owns the fence

Yeah, people who do this are generally in the category of Troller/Enfant Provocateur, but the technique itself could be considered as a separate entry.

My IQ is 403 Joined: 07 Feb 2005 Posts: 69

This never happens, there is no such thing as side scrolling even.
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Bring me back to the index

Hells Kitchen Enforcer Joined: 16 Feb 2005 Posts: 655

Possible Troller Joined: 14 Feb 2005 Posts: 144

Reminds me of when someone at a forum found out he could put HTML in his Location field. Problem was, the Location was shown in the forum.

Next time I log on, I see 15 different people with Locations ranging from just a colored city name to full 1024x768 wallpaper images. And it didn't manner if they were newbies or regulars. A regular actually got banned over it because he saw nothing wrong with the fact that his city name was red and argued it out like there was no tomorrow.

Hmmmm, gotta try that one.
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The Average Woman Would Rather Have Beauty Than Brains Because The Average Man Can See Better Than He Can Think