A Troll? What's a Troll?

No, we're not talking about the little guys who hang around under bridges. On the net, a 'troller' is someone who deliberately tries to disrupt a community by invading a newsgroup, chat room, web forum or other such place where information or views are exchanged. The message they use to do this is known as a 'troll'.

Typically, the troller will post something inflammatory, misleading or controversial. Others may pretend to be completely and unbelievably ignorant of the main topic of discussion and simply post a number of inane questions.

Often in Usenet (see the lesson on Discussion Groups), they will try to pit one group against the other by cross-posting their material. Cross-posting describes the action of posting the same message to a number of different groups. Often there are some good reasons to do this, but a message entitled 'Lung Cancer is a Myth' sent to differing groups like alt.smokers, alt.support.non-smokers and maybe even alt.support.cancer is obviously a troll.

Any reply to a troll is a victory for the troller - this especially includes angry replies identifying the troll. The main thing to remember is that such pranks, however malicious they may seem, are at their heart childish and attention-seeking. As such, the best thing you can do is ignore them.

While not every outrageous, insulting or stupid message is a troll, you'll quickly learn to identify them in time (and these kinds of messages are best left alone anyway).

Most trolls will move on if they are ignored, so it pays to remember that, no matter how much you feel you must reply, warn others or simply tell the troller off, that the only winning move is not to play.

I didn't know what a troll was, so thought this might help those who are as uneducated as me.

Jock