There are various characteristics of an internet troll, but three of those characteristics that appear in forums where people are trying to have a serious discussion about important issues are:

1. All of your carefully researched arguments, and the evidence that supports them, will simply be ignored.

2. Whatever you say will be reworded into something else.

3. Anything you say, especially if it happens to be of a personal nature, will be twisted and used against you, often to try to denigrate you or call your character into question.

Anonymity, or an easily discarded "internet name," makes the troll feel safe to say things that he would not dare say to someone face to face.

The internet troll is basically a coward who uses trolling as a means of inflating his own shaky ego.

The usual advice is "don't feed the troll," which is to say, don't respond to him and he'll go away. But more often than not, somebody will respond to him, and he manages to disrupt and divert discussions that otherwise might be fairly productive. But the troll is not interested in the discussion itself. He only wishes to disrupt it, or divert it to focus on himself.

Don Firth