Excuse my autism, but I've noticed posters sometimes seem to mix up the following terms. I see this on other websites, too. This is understandable, since the terms are vague and not widely known.
These are subjective to some degree, but here is how I personally define them.
SamefaggingThis is a general term for deceptive posting. It can mean the following things:
- Taking on more than one persona in a thread to make it seem like your view has wider support than it actually does. This is also called
sockpuppeting. May involve replying to your own posts agreeing with yourself, or significantly changing writing style to make it seem like a different person is also giving similar positive or negative remarks. Particularly dedicated samefags may try to use a different IP address as well.
- Making multiple posts back-to-back, without obvious indication they were all made by you. This is not always deceptive, though is often annoying.
- May also apply to general false or omitted self-identification. For example, if the subject of a /pt/ thread started secretly and anonymously posting in her own thread to disagree with people or defend herself, this may also be called samefagging. There may be a better term for this, but if there is, I'm not yet aware of it.
Self-postingPosting about yourself in any way, whether anonymous or self-identifying. For example: posting a picture of yourself, linking to your own profiles, giving excessive details about your life, etc. Self-posts are completely acceptable in some threads and some contexts, but they usually are frowned upon otherwise. You shouldn't try to make yourself stand out on an anonymous board. Valid spellings also include
self posting and
selfposting.
Vendetta / vendettafag / vendetta-postingPosting about someone as if you are a random person who happens to dislike them, when in reality you have some sort of personal connection or grudge. Often involves samefagging. Generally has no relation to self-posting, except in cases of self-victimization. In cases where you present the chan with an implicit or explicit "call to action", to further your vendetta, this is also called a
personal army (PA) request. Often involves misleading or deceptive information.
An example of a vendetta post would be arguing with a girl on social media, and later posting a thread calling her a whore. Asking people to send things to her parents, or falsely claiming she's violated some site's terms of service and requesting people report her, or including her address and phone number in the post, would be a vendetta post as well as a personal army request.
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