[skyguy79]

Originally Posted by cappyjon431

In the context of the internet, chat rooms, message boards and TOTV, the word "troll" has a ver specific meaning. the definitions below explain the concept.

From: What is an Internet Troll? (Posting Guidelines - Netiquette) What is a Forum Troll?
"An "Internet troll" or "Forum Troll" or "Message Board Troll" is a person who posts outrageous message to bait people to answer. Forum Troll delights in sowing discord on the forums. A troll is someone who inspires flaming rhetoric, someone who is purposely provoking and pulling people into flaming discussion. Flaming discussions usually end with name calling and a flame war."

From: The Straight Dope: What is a troll?
"The term "troll" can have a double meaning, related to fishing and ugly monsters. Both are appropriate.

"Troll," in the context of message boards and the like, describes somebody who is posting just to be confrontational or to raise hackles. One example might be a teenager who finds a Jewish message board and posts, "The Holocaust never happened." The teen may not know or care one way or the other--he just wants a reaction. He wants to **** people off. He is a troll."

From: Free Online Dictionary of Computing (http://foldoc.doc.ic.ac.uk/foldoc/foldoc.c gi?troll) notes, "Trolling aims to elicit an emotional reaction from those with a hair-trigger on the reply key. A really subtle troll makes some people lose their minds."

Thanks for this posting. It comes the closest to explaining to people exactly what a troll is and helping them to understand exactly what message they're conveying when they loosely toss around that accusation.

IMHO, and in consideration of the true meaning of a troll, there are no regular posters that I've detected that deserve being referred to as a troll, at least not anyone that has been involved in these current discussions in progress. However, I do have to say that there are some posters that come dangerously close to actually being a troll, when they irresponsibly and without proper understanding of the term directly or indirectly (by support of others) accuse others of being a troll, especially when the accused is not! Personally I feel that calling another a troll is not in the spirit of this forum, if not in direct violation of the rules, and as such they should have their posts deleted as well as be addressed about this by the administration or moderation of this forum!