Trolls

February 2008

A user on Hacker News recently posted a
comment
that set me thinking:

Something about hacker culture that never really set well with
me was this — the nastiness. ... I just don't understand why people
troll like they do.

I've thought a lot over the last couple years about the problem of
trolls. It's an old one, as old as forums, but
we're still just learning what the causes are and how to address
them.

There are two senses of the word "troll." In the original sense
it meant someone, usually an outsider, who deliberately stirred up
fights in a forum by saying controversial things.
[1