The PI has added a "soundoff" comment section to some articles. It is an unregulated comment section, and like all unregulated Internet comment sections, it ends up being dominated by trolls. In this case, the primary troll is an abstract entity called "awdie eyes."

Wikipedia has an article on the Internet troll which dates the term to Usenet in the late 1980s, and that it is short form for "trolling" as in sport fishing, dragging a line through the water and hoping something bites. The fact that the noun troll is a folkloric creature that lives under bridges and eats children and billygoats is no doubt why the term stuck around.

My take on trolling is this: the troll is (metaphorically) sticking other people with a pin in order to watch them jump. Presumably, this is because the jumping reaction makes the troll feel energized in some way, possibly similar to kids who act up in class to make the teacher mad, or people who kick anthills to watch the ants run around. I don't really know what motivates trolls. There's a passive-aggressive component, certainly. And, although individual trolls tend to come from a consistent viewpoint -- that is, a right-wing troll will rarely flip around and start poking as a left-wing troll -- trolls actually seem more like each other than like non-troll adherents to the same viewpoint.

Classic trolling behavior happens on discussion lists where people are anonymous, but I think people who actually know each other sometimes go trolling too -- for example, on small discussion lists where everyone already knows who everyone else is. Or, e-mail sent between friends or family members. Or -- I would claim that people such as the triple-headed dog of Hell (Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter) are professional, real-life trolls.

So, what's the difference between somebody who disagrees with you, and a troll?

It's on a spectrum, certainly, and there are places where the trolling behavior is marginal enough that maybe it's not actually trolling at all, maybe it's simply somebody coming across as more insensitive than intended. For example, when I make jokes that people take personally -- I don't intend to get them all upset, I intend to make them laugh, or make them think, but sometimes I miscalculate. It's possible, if I did this on an Internet forum, that I would be perceived by some people as trolling. But I wasn't. Because I didn't actually want to upset people.

Troll characteristic 1: statements deliberately engineered to upset other people.

Of course, this means that to identify someone as a troll, you are ascribing motive. Which people often take offense at, even if you get it right. So, calling someone a troll could almost be considered an act of trollism, which...

Never mind. Let's not go there.

Anyway, people who are not trolling might sometimes say things that upset you. But a troll will also swear at you, call you names, impugn your motives, twist your words, and poke common buttons in the hope of poking yours.

Troll characteristic 2: statements with little content OTHER than to upset people.

This is the "X sux!" rule of trolls. A statement about how "X sux!" can only be answered by "Nuh-uh! Y sux!" and is that really a conversation?

On the PI forum, for example, big ol' troll comes out with empty insults like:

"Only a committed lefty could make such a brazen Orwellian statement like that."

"Mr. Buckley represents the kind of intellectual honesty that is so inaccessbile to those of the lefty persuasion."

"You're all a bunch of cowards - like all lefties."

"Just because many are dismayed with certain decisions by Bush (sorry, not the war but ports deal and immigration) doesn't mean they're ready to become self-loathing pacifist weenies."

Blatant name-calling is some of the more obvious trollish behavior. He* trolls for, and receives, statements in kind -- insults directed at him, at Republicans, etc. Some of the responses have no more content than the original insults, while some of them actually attempt to engage the troll's points in a kind of debate. This attempt is, of course, pointless. Because of troll characteristic 3...

*Yeah, there are female trolls. A few. Not only are they waaaaay outnumbered by the males, but, trolling behavior seems intrinsically guyish, so that most trolls are automatically assigned sex "male" in the minds of people reading them.

Troll characteristic 3: refusal to concede anything in any way under any circumstances.

Sometimes, a troll's FIRST post is indistinguishable from genuine argument or devil's advocacy. So, a trusting (or gullible) member of the list engages the first post in argument -- taking the points that seem to be raised and responding to them. (Kinda like when I argue with George Will's columns. Of course, Will is not actually a troll, and he never responds to my arguments anyway. In fact, I'm reasonably sure he never sees them or knows they exist, but you never know. Maybe he's a secret fan. That would be cool.)

For example, on the PI forum, the troll makes an allegation: "Y'all need to vary your reading lists from just the P.I. and dailykos.com!"

(Note: whenever a right winger gratuitously mentions dailykos, trolling behavior is about to follow. The attentive reader already suspects this is a troll and refuses to engage.)

(Note note: by a gratuitous mention of dailykos, I mean one in which the original poster did not mention or quote dailykos.)

(Note note note: a major troll behavior is to assume characteristics of others in the broadest and most insulting way possible, inviting responses along the lines of "nuh-uh! I never heard of dailykos!" or "but I'm a veteran, you chucklehead!" Because it's a troll, though, you never get anywhere by correcting factual errors regarding your background and motives. If the troll says, "have you even BEEN to Europe?" and you say, "as a matter of fact, I've been living here for five years" it won't make any substantive difference to the argument. The troll will just take things in a different direction, one where your expertise on European affairs matters not.)

Another poster responds by pointing out that he, and others on the forum, have cited many different sources: PacificNews, Wikipedia, Reuters, nytimes.com, news.yahoo.com, testimony from the Senate Democratic Policy Council and House Government Reform Committee Hearing, infoplease.com, a filing by special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, icasualties.org, cnn.com, pbs.org, news.bbc.co.uk, mediamatters.org, msnbc.msn.com, and the Bible. The troll responds by saying "your sources are ALL heavily slanted to the left. No wonder you think as you do - garbage in, garbage out." (Note the refusal to engage the actual content of the post, and more gratuitous insults. Trollness should be obvious now.)

Another poster points out that the troll has "bagged up just about every major internet news outlet -- and the Bible -- as unreliable sources.<..> If this is the case you can expect continuous adversarialism from 80% of the nation." The troll again refuses to engage the actual content -- the challenge to his blanket assertion that, basically, everything has a leftist bias -- and instead picks up on a secondary point, claiming "you live in a dream world if you think 80% of America is on your side." He has been argued into a corner on the original point, but instead of conceding even a little, he remains viciously and insultingly on the attack.

At this point everyone should know this is a troll, and cut off the food supply.

Troll characteristic 4: refusal to let anyone else have the last word.

Trolls will keep arguing and arguing, even if they have nothing new to say. A troll-driven argument doesn't die a natural death -- it stops when people stop responding to the troll. In fact, one of the sure signs that you have been trolled is that after you have already stopped responding, the troll throws a couple of pointless arguments your way anyhow.

Trolls are prone to responding to their OWN posts just to keep things going -- when you see several posts in a row by the same name, chances are high that it's a troll.

Troll characteristic 5: Troll arguments are very personal. The troll is arguing with YOU, not with what you think.

Hence, the insults, the ad hominem attacks, the blanket assertions, the general attitude of aggression, the constant use of dismissives like "LOL"*. One of the ironic things about trolls, is that we KNOW they are just trying to make us mad...

And that makes us mad.

*means "Laughing Out Loud." When used to mean, "hey, this flash animation really cracked me up," it can be part of normal discourse, but when used to mean "your argument is so ridiculous it has me laughing out loud" it is a sure sign of troll.

The care and lack of feeding of trolls

The reason that you don't feed trolls is that, if you feed them, they grow to enormous size and become gravity wells around which the argument swirls endlessly like clouds of interstellar dust. Probably, this is what they live for -- the temporary artificial feeling of importance.

(As if upsetting people is difficult. Sheesh.)

Trolls inspire trollish behavior in others, and drag all discourse down to a primitive, childish level of name-calling and insults. Trolls set the tone, if you let them, and they set it down in a mud puddle.

On the PI forum used here as an instructive example, MOST of the posts are driven by what the troll has to say, and not by the points raised by the original article.