Originally this term applied to people who were intentionally posting flamebait, by analogy with the fishing technique: metaphorically, these people were dragging a conversational lure through the group, hoping for a response. The concept of "this person is trolling us" became shortened to "this person is a troll", and picked up the folkloric association.

Trolling mostly maintains its earlier meaning of posting messages specifically in order to elicit an particular response, usually anger or argument.

The noun form, troll, is sometimes used in the more general sense of someone who stirs up controversy, whether or not the controversy itself is the goal. Frequently this is used to discredit one position in an argument. By labelling one's opponent a troll, one is asserting that they are only maintaining their position in order to feed the flames, and that their position is actually indefensible.

Common types of troll messages:

There is some generally accepted wisdom about dealing with Internet trolls: "Don't feed the trolls, that will only encourage them." That is, do not respond to them, that is the attention they desire.

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 piss people off. He is a troll.

There are more subtle trolling techniques as well. One Internet dictionary (www.whatis.com) gives a real example in which somebody posted about "the discovery of an ancient African carving containing a list of prime numbers." The poster listed some of the prime numbers supposedly on the carving, some of which weren't actually primes. People who saw the message, thinking he was serious, responded with corrections. The troll then announced that those who spent their time responding to him had been "hooked."

That suggests how the term got its start. Trolling, to those who don't spend all their time in front of the computer, is a method of fishing where you trail bait through the water from a slow-moving boat hoping to hook an unwary fish. An online troll does much the same.

The other meaning of troll--a brutish monster who lives under a bridge--likely didn't have much to do with the origin of the term. But at an early stage it was conflated with the other sense of trolling for obvious reasons: if you've dealt much with trolls, you know you're dealing with some pretty ugly minds.

To be fair, not all trolls are slimeballs. On some message boards, veteran posters with a mischievous bent occasionally go "newbie trolling." On the Usenet newsgroup alt.folklore.urban, as of a few years ago anyway, it was fairly common for pranksters to post known urban legends as fact in hopes of getting novice users to go, "No, REALLY?" Gotcha, sucker.

The main point about trolls is that they intentionally mislead others. As the 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."

The term "troll" is often flung about too casually. If somebody is simply ignorant or obtuse, it's incorrect to call him a troll. Admittedly, it's not always easy to distinguish between someone pretending to be wrong and someone who is wrong and doesn't know it or won't admit it.

How does one deal with trolls? That depends on your personality, the overall disposition of the message board, and the type of message board you're using.

There are two kinds of message boards: moderated and unmoderated. On unmoderated MBs such as most Usenet newsgroups, no one is in charge and there is no way to prevent a troll from posting short of persuading his Internet service provider to cancel his account. Moderated boards like the Straight Dope Message Board offer more control--truly egregious trolls can be banned and their posts deleted. But most board moderators, including those at the SDMB, reserve that sanction for extreme cases. A post I consider trolling someone else may find thought-provoking. Too quick a finger on the "delete" button and you open yourself to charges of censorship.

Besides, this is the Internet, the closest we've come to a free marketplace of ideas. The prevailing ethic here is that it's best to let everyone have his say, and rely on the good sense of other participants to sort out sound ideas from stupid ones. Which means it all comes down to you.

Many people feel trolls should simply be ignored, and some message boards have evolved their own private codes to warn off other users. (On the SDMB, one such code is DNFTT, "do not feed the trolls"). But others dislike the idea of giving trolls free rein.

On the SDMB, Cecil's goal of fighting ignorance is generally the guiding principle. If somebody posts misinformation, other users feel obliged to point it out. I'm sure some trolls delight in getting others to respond in this way, but the choice is either that or let a troll's posts stand unchallenged. Ignoring obvious nonsense has some advantages, but what about naive users who may read the falsehood and, seeing nothing to rebut it, believe it? To prevent that, some advocate responding to trolls once and only once. You refute the misinformation and that's that. Of course, this is often easier said than done, and many people (myself included) simply cannot sit idly by while the troll gleefully continues to post BS.

The other option is to pounce on every last falsehood and fabrication. This can lead to a classic flame war. We've had threads on the SDMB with close to a thousand posts as users attempt to get in the last word with an obstinate troll. These battles can be exhilarating but also exhausting. Inevitably at some point you ask yourself: what's the point?

In short, you've got two possibilities--ignore the troll or argue with him. My recommendation is as follows: If the person is a well-known troll with low credibility, post once to point out the flaws and then ignore him. If there's a real chance he may fool people who don't know better, knock him down with facts.

The object of this post is to bring together a definitive document to cover the phenomena of the Usenet Troll. To many a troll is nothing more than an annoying method of defeating the killfile whereas to the heavily killfiled, trolling can be a virtual Godsend. What I want this document to focus on is how to create entertaining trolls. I have drawn on the expertise of the writer's of some of Usenet's finest and best remembered trolls. Trolls are for fun. The object of recreational trolling is to sit back and laugh at all those gullible idiots that will believe *anything*.

What is a troll? The WWW gives this as a definition:

troll v.,n. To utter a posting on Usenet designed to attract predictable responses or flames. Derives from the phrase "trolling for newbies"; which in turn comes from mainstream "trolling";, a style of fishing in which one trails bait through a likely spot hoping for a bite. The well-constructed troll is a post that induces lots of newbies and flamers to make themselves look even more clueless than they already do, while subtly conveying to the more savvy and experienced that it is in fact a deliberate troll. If you don't fall for the joke, you get to be in on it. The following extract is from a broader expansion of the defining comments given above:

In Usenet usage, a "troll" is not a grumpy monster that lives beneath a bridge accosting passers-by, but rather a provocative posting to a newsgroup intended to produce a large volume of frivolous responses. The content of a "troll" posting generally falls into several areas. It may consist of an apparently foolish contradiction of common knowledge, a deliberately offensive insult to the readers of a newsgroup, or a broad request for trivial follow-up postings. There are three reasons why people troll newsgroups:

People post such messages to get attention, to disrupt newsgroups, and simply to make trouble. Career trollers tend for the latter two whilst the former is the mark of the clueless newbie and should be ignored. A troll is no different to any other Usenet posting. That needs to be stressed. Any article that you decide to write should be written with a view to it actually being read by large numbers of people. Simply X-posting to large numbers of irrelevant newsgroups is not creative trolling - it is just spam and should be avoided. The experienced troller spends time carefully choosing the right subject and delivering it to the right newsgroup. With trolls, delivery is just as important as the subject.

Start the troll in a reasonable and erudite manner. You have to engage your readers' interest and draw them in. Never give too much away at the start - although a brief abstract with hints of what's to come can work wonders. Construct your troll in a manner to make it readable. Use short paragraphs and lots of white space. Keep line length below eighty characters. Use a liberal amount of emphasis and even the occasional illustration. A good rule of thumb is that as your troll becomes more and more ludicrous put extra effort into the presentation--this keeps the mug punter confused. Let confusion and chaos be your goal!

Make your subject a relevant one. Posting "Star Trek Sucks" into hk.forsale is not going to work very well and is liable to utterly destroy your hard earned reputation as a troller overnight. You do not have to make the subject clear. Trolls are aimed at two audiences, the respondees and the lurkers. The best trolls reveal their true subject only to the lurkers. In every sense those who reply to your troll are your tools. So choose a theme for your troll and stick to it. Outwardly you need to appear sincere, but at the same time you have to tell your *real* audience that this is blatant flamebait. Your skill is shown in the easy way that you manipulate large areas of the Usenet community into making public fools of themselves.

Choice of newsgroup is as important as the subject, tone and structure of the troll. You want to appeal to each group you X-post into to ensure responses from each group. A well delivered troll will anticipate what those responses will be and thus ensure that contradictions will arise amongst the different groups that you are setting up.

Bad Troll:
Posting "USA Sucks" to alt.nuke.the.USA, alt.usa-sucks, aus.flame.usa

This is totally on-topic and obvious. A truly useless troll.

Average Troll:
Posting "God Doesn't Exist" to all the alt.religion newsgroups

Here you are being too obvious. People recognise this sort of trouble making and have usually learned not to respond to it. However, if your troll is well written you can actually entrap a lot of newbies. This, if executed correctly, can be exploited to cause great offence to those more experienced troll avoiders on the groups you are attacking. Go for it!

Good Troll:
Posting an article that appears relevant to every group but with no connection between those groups other than the fact that you've just trolled them. The best trolls go out to an average of around eight or nine newsgroups. This will stop them from becoming spam as it's not quite enough to be a real problem. However, to get by on so few groups you have to include a couple of popular ones in the list.

When posting to say seven groups you should try to break down your theme into seven areas - each of which will be of specific interest to just one of those groups. You then write an eight paragraph troll with a paragraph for each group and a spare one for yourself with which to lob in a gratuitous insult to everyone who was dumb enough to read your troll.

It is a matter of choice whether you choose newsgroups before or after writing the troll. Some experts claim that newsgroup selection is the key to successful trolling and should be done first, others will write general trolls and then apply the standard Perl script that trollers use for Automatic Random Newsgroup Selection.

Remember that you have two audiences. The people who are going to get the maximum enjoyment out of your post are other trollers. You need to keep in contact with them through both your troll itself and the way you direct its effect. It is trollers that you are trying to entertain so be creative - trollers don't just want a laugh from you they want to see good trolls so that they can also learn how to improve their own in the never ending search for the perfect troll. The other audience is of course the little people in those newsgroups that your are attacking. Get to know them. Every newsgroup has its smartarse who will expose your troll if given half a chance. Research your targets and learn what their arguments are. Then avoid those argu- ments like the plague. Drag them off-topic - the further off-topic the better. Remember, you are trying to waste their time. Never take sides - remember that your goal is not to win an argument, rather it is to provoke a futile one that runs forever.

If, for example you were attacking Fast Food then you should also X-post to Healthy Eating groups, Environmental Protection Groups, Animal Rights Groups etc....You want to try to ensure that you have the broadest possible range of opinions as this is the easiest way to sow confusion. The more confusion the less the likelihood of your troll being exposed for what it is. It can also be shown that the inclusion of just one totally off-topic newsgroup can have dramatic effects. The list above is taken from a genuine troll which also included an Artificial Intelligence group, the result of which was to draw Computer Guru Professor Marvin Minsky into a flamewar concerning Ronald McDonald's exploitation of the disabled - an all-time classic piece of trolling - written by a practising veggie.

"Even if this is true..."

That represents the perfect response to any troll. The mark of a gullible lunatic that will almost certainly believe anything you tell her (women always make the best trollees as they have a logical reasoning capacity of zilch). A total group embarrassment. Award yourself a Troll Gold Star every time you get one!

Other good responses include, but are not limited to...

"Although this is on-topic..."
"I disagree..."
"Yes, but..."
"Can you provide a source for this..."

Try not to follow-up to your own troll. The troll itself quickly becomes forgotten in the chaos and if you just sit back you can avoid being blamed for causing it. Remember, if you do follow up you are talking to an idiot. Treat them with the ill-respect they deserve. You should also learn to recognise follow-ups from your fellow trollers. Sometimes an average troll can be elevated into majestic proportions when several trollers spontaneously join forces via the medium of the follow up troll. Ignore cries of wasted bandwidth! This is pure drivel that will always be posted by the anti-troll lobby. These jerks fail to understand that trolls are the best way to drive people off the internet thus making available multi-mbs for the rest of us to download our porn.

A good example of troll success is the famous "Oh How I Envy American Students" troll. This troll was written by an English brick-layer posing as an american student. He correctly posted it to all the college news- groups and then left american students to do all the work spreading it. His troll ran for over a year, it is known to have generated in excess of 3,500 responses (an average of 1 response every 160 minutes for a whole year) and the greatest coup of all was when an innocent american student lost not only her internet account but was also expelled from high school for abuse of the computer systems. Somehow she had managed to get the blame for causing the troll.