Rumoring

Description
When a user comments and expresses a strong opinion referring to a source whose author did not intend to share the same opinion.

Examples
A blog user, Alice, has shared content about a certain subject. An other user, Bob, comments on the blog post, saying to agree but also expressing a stronger (often not politically correct) opinion. Doing so, Bob indicates that Alice also has these opinions. In many cases, Alice does not hide her identity, and Bob is anonymous.

Pros and Cons
The application does generally want content to be shared, but also wants its users to be happy. This pattern is also subjective, some users might classify some content as rumoring when others might not.

Relations
This behavior might lead to users to remove comments not allowing comments at all. Forcing all users to register and reveal their identity before commenting might also help. When the rumoring user post on a different medium and refers to the original source, it is harder for the original author to even know if rumoring exists.

This pattern may lead to users to Self Censoring in order to Maintaining A Reputation. The rumoring user often uses the pattern Adding Devious Information.

Contributors
Created by Malin Mattsson.