What Is A Troll?

[JTrigg]

Now for a Shiela break:

Pardon my Net Ignorance (which is presently in proportion to my net worth)
but could someone provide me with a succinct definition of a "troll" (and
I
don't mean the nemesis of the Billy Goats Gruff). I want to make sure I
use
the term correctly when I whip that baby out.

Thanks,

John "who's tramping on my bridge" Trigg (hey, that rhymes)

"I am a peripheral visionary"
- Steven Wright

[Bruce Tindall]

Kirk Kerekes <red...@tulsa.oklahoma.net> wrote:
>A troll is when someone posts statements that they know to be
>[false/ignorant/inane], for the entertainment value of watching the
>responses. A successful troll "pushes people's buttons" and provokes
>heated replies.

And, to be pendantic about it, the "troll" is the posted article
itself; the person who posts it is the "troller". There is a
very complicated nomenclatural protocol for describing the various
types of responses.

There's also an important distinction to be drawn between trolls
and flamebait. Trolls usually contain deliberate misstatements of
fact (e.g., "Captain Kirk's middle name is Ruthven", or "Light cannot
travel in a vacuum"); flamebait usually contains an outrageous opinion
(e.g., stating that a certain diabolical dictator "was a great man").

B "Final Exam: The statement 'AOL is the root of all evil' is
(a) a troll, (b) flamebait, (c) The Gospel Truth, (d) incomplete
because it doesn't contain the words 'and Windows95 too'" T

--
Bruce Tindall tin...@panix.com