Trolling for Suckers, Part V

Intent

Attributing intent to trolls is a very difficult issue since by its very nature to call someone a troll is to already assume an intent, that they are posting only to cause problems. So once a person is called a troll they have already been categorized by the speaker as someone with a certain intention.

Many people call others trolls, few call themselves trolls, so a troll is not a self-constructed identity but rather is a category constructed via the speech act of calling someone a troll. Perhaps the more interesting question is the motivation for labeling others as trolls. Individuals so labeled find it offensive. Useful advice for dealing with someone considered to be a troll is, rather than using that term, to ask them questions such as: "What is your intent?" or other questions relevant to the discussion rather than using the ad hominem label "troll."

Trolls can be existing members of a community that rarely post and often contribute no useful information to the thread, but instead make argumentative posts in an attempt to discredit another person, concentrating almost exclusively on facts irrelevant to the point of the conversation, with the intent of provoking a reaction from others. The key element under attack by a troll is known only to the troll.

A person who retaliates (using whatever means) as a result of a misunderstanding (or as a way of rebelling against the overzealous application of rules) is not a troll.^[7] A troll is a person who approaches a board with the specific intention of stirring things up, either as a goal in and of itself or as a means of attacking the board perhaps motivated by opposition to the ethos of the board. For example, a neo-Nazi approaching a Jewish forum with the intention of attacking the members, purely because the neo-Nazi knows the forum to contain Jewish members, will be considered a troll.

The general element, that determines whether a malicious user is a troll or not, is the level of indignant emotions present in the person, coupled with the person's history with the forum or group. An indignant user who has had a previous normal relationship with the group is not a troll, even if the user uses methods of attack that are characteristic of a troll attack.

A troll's main goal is usually to arouse anger and frustration among the message board's other participants, and will write whatever it takes to achieve this end. One popular trolling strategy is the practice of Winning by Losing. While the victim is trying to put forward solid and convincing facts to prove his position, the troll's only goal is to infuriate its prey. The troll takes (what it knows to be) a badly flawed, wholly illogical argument, and then vigorously defends it while mocking and insulting its prey. The troll looks like a complete fool, but this is all part of the plan. The victim becomes noticeably angry by trying to repeatedly explain the flaws of the troll's argument. Provoking this anger was the troll's one and only goal from the very beginning.