More and more often a trend to "troll" emerges on the public boards and forums. Certain individuals, who feed off the emotional responses of others post controversial and often irrelevant messages in order to simply make us angry. Often enough they manage to do it.

So what do trolls do? According to Wiki trolls intentionally post controversial, inflammatory, irrelevant or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum, chat room or blog, with the primary intent of provoking other users into an emotional response or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion. Wiki, as usual, is straight to the point.

Hokay, in reality it's not all that simple. There are a few of troll-look-alike types. Any normal, reasonable person can get angry about a certain topic, if in fact that topic means something more to them than a thread on the discussion board, namely 9/11. On multiple occasions during my internet posting experience people reacted negatively (and some even showed wrath and hatred in the posts) when I referred to 9/11 and a second scale tragedy compared to Holocaust or Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I, by no means, was trolling, however some topics obviously better left silent. That is not an example of trolling, but rather of an inappropriate question formulation, or, maybe, wrong time-period to touch on such a sensitive issue.

Another example of troll-look-alike is zealots: those dudes have no other intention, but to prove that their favourite stuff is the best. We all know those people in everyday life: they buy games, keep the boxes, and will strike down on anyone who does not agree that this particular game is the best of all. They often change their opinions about their stuff, and rarely listen to common sense logic. A friend of mine puts down the iPhones, all the time, but praises iPod touch. Why? He does not have an iPhone, but has the iPod. Reasons? Unfortunately the reason is the fact that they know otherwise. They need constant reassurance that they have the best stuff, and they are ready to put down everything else because their stuff has no advantages over the better stuff. If, for whatever reason, they cannot get hands on the particular item or a game, they go around dissing the competition: great example of which is everlasting X-BOX 360 vs. PS3. The X-Box zealots would put down PS3 and its exclusives for a number of reasons, but the only real one is the fact that they cannot enjoy PS3's exclusives; if they could, I'm sure they would. Same goes in reverse.

Now to my favourite of the troll-look-alike guys: the kids. Those little inhabitants of planet earth, that have an unlimited internet access, but cannot, however, construct a proper argument, are making childish remarks and piss off most of the adult population. Often they do not know what they talk about, or what there is to talk about, but nonetheless pretend to be the experts in the relevant field. However as adults we should let it slide, and not engage in the stupid "how old are you?" forum warfare. They are just learning to interact with the older population, let's not show them what not to be.

Other than that, any person, who is not too cheap to pick up 360 and PS3, who is older than 16 years old, and who is not getting easily angry on internet forums, but still trolls, is a troll. The way I see it, there are number of reasons why a troll trolls. The first and foremost trolling is a lot of fun: you write something, and someone else gets angry. This gives a beautiful feeling of being important, needed, and socially controversial. This allows making a statement with no possible ramifications. And this produces a real, tangible result: everyone is pissed, and the thread can be closed.

So, with all the simplification, we are back to the Wiki's description; now the question: is trolling good, or bad? I would love to see responses in the comments, and I will write the next blog update reflecting on the public responses. Please and thank you.