In my various random ramblings across the Internet, courtesy of the awesomeness that is StumbleUpon, I have noticed a certain recurring trend with the comments one tends to find appended to Internet articles and the like. Each and every comment you will find on a comments list will tend to fall into one or more of these categories, and will often go in this order as well:

1) Sycophants

Commenters who slavishly support whatever ideological standpoint it is the article is written about. You can usually spot Sycophants by their seeming lack of any grammar or punctuation whatsoever. These are the kind of people who write 'cool update soon plz' on fanfiction reviews (as a completely hypothetical example). In short, people who, while well-intentioned, probably don't have the minimum two brain cells required to rub together to create some brain-sparks.

2) Fans

Think of Fans as the evolution of Sycophants: those one step further up the chain of the group called 'Appreciaters' (for reasons that will become evident soon). Fans dig the article in question and heartily approve of whatever viewpoint it stands up for. Fans tend to be able to form sentences properly, although spelling may be incorrect from time to time. The stage is now set for the Appreciaters to be challenged by:

3) The Hater

The Hater is the Devil incarnate to all Appreciaters, for there is only ever one - and there always is one, believe me. It may be possible that there is some far-flung corner of the 'net in which everyone is able to get along and play nicely, but if so then I have not yet found it. The Hater is completely, absolutely and totally opposed to whatever the article may be about and will insult both the author of the article and anyone who shows even the slightest modicum of appreciation for it. The Hater, strangely enough, tends to be quite literate, if impervious to reason, operating on some kind of twisted personal logic that bears no relation to that employed by anyone else. The Hater is pathologically stubborn and will NEVER admit that they might possibly be even slightly wrong in any way.

4) Hater-Haters

The Hater's arrival will herald an entire mess of comments from Hater-Haters. The H-H's favourite weapon is self-righteousness and a sense of 'holier-than-thou'ness. The H-H's defence mechanism upon being insulted by the Hater (or any of his minions, as below) is to make a tactical withdrawal under the guise of injured innocence before striking back in a furious splurge of hurt feelings and spite. However, they are as yet only the foot-soldiers, and not capable of mounting much resistance.

5) Mini-Haters

Much in the same way that any Dark Lord worth his salt will have an army of base minions, in the Hater's wake will come a wave of Mini-Haters. It is possible that one or two Minis may crop up before the advent of the Hater, but they only ever show up in force after the Hater has arrived, as though protected by the Hater's shield of relative intellect. M-Hs are the antagonistic equivalent of Sycophants and rarely contribute anything more meaningful than a volley of badly-spelled swearwords and strangely-constructed insults that probably made sense in the M-H's head before they were typed (if indeed any cogitation occurred at all).

6) Voices of Reason

When it seems as though the Hater-Haters are about to be overwhelmed, the Appreciaters bring out the first of their big guns: the Voices of Reason. These Commenters are absolutely convinced that their superior intellect and calm demeanour will win the day via carefully-structured arguments built mainly from basic logic and common sense. Unfortunately, however sensible a Voice of Reason may be, they always neglect one important fact: the Hater simply wades through reason like a big thing that walks through something without caring about the something that it's walking through. If you can come up with a metaphor for that, you're a better man than I, Gungadin.

7) Linkers/Quoters

Either very lazy or very unimaginative, L/Qs will never resort to writing more than a paragraph of their own words: instead what they will do, without fail, is provide a link to some site or a quote from some source that they believe says all that needs to be said. They will often accompany said link or quote with a single smug sentence that says something annoyingly glib like ''Nuff said.' or 'In conclusion: you're wrong.' This kind of Commenter is nauseatingly common.

8) Snipers

Commenters whose belief in their own comedic prowess oft outstrips by far their ability to coherently argue. They are a study in the logical fallacy of ad hominem - namely, attacking the person rather than the argument - whose main function is to demoralise the enemy as much as possible, often whilst hiding behind the arguments of other, more sophisticated Commenters on their side, be they Appreciaters or Haters. Snipers tend to pick off the lesser targets in a bid not to attract too much attention.

9) Piss-Takers

Commenters who masquerade under the banner of the opposite side. Their function is of course satirical, aiming to caricature the opposition and thus demonstrate by logical extension how ridiculous they are, but unless a P-T goes incredibly over-the-top it can be difficult to discern their allegiance thanks to the sensitivity-stripping qualities of the text-based Internet, and thus Piss-Takers are sometimes targeted by their own side - especially by the lesser ranks who are too stupid to understand satire.

10) Mediators

Commenters who attempt to bring the two sides together or otherwise defuse the tension. Extremely rare. In fact, I fear I may be the only one. When I'm in a good mood.