I've scrawled a few websites and they define
'trolling,' as:

1) "The act of purposefully antagonizing
other people on the internet..."

2) "The act of appearing on internet forums
with malicious intent..."

How can any of these things be proven?
Could it be that what we suspect as "trolling,"
is simply our own bias coming out against the
opinions of others that differ from our own?

Your thoughts on this topic please.

YES. I've always believed that we define a troll as one who differs from our opinion, AND persists in doing so.

What a damned nuisance they are!!.!!.......!

( Gotyer' you exclamation mark monitor you!!.............!!

I think number one fits the most common definition of trolling.

Posting with malicious intent is defensible in the name of free speech. However, malicious posters frequently refuse to justify their malice, and persist with arguments that are easily and routinely disproven.

You can only point out that 2+2 does not, in fact, equal 5 so many times before frustration turns to abuse, at which point the discussion begins to look like the product of a deliberate troll.

Trolling is an intention or an exuce to block people's posts who does not like,for one milion reasons.
Antonios Symeonakis
Adelaide

Foxy,
Simple look under Billy Goat Gruff's Bridge :-) he he he he.

I view trolling as one line highly provocatively/negative/nasty response without any explanation or substance to permit a rebuttal i.e. "Only an idiot would believe this" or "more of Kevin/Malcolm's crap" etc.

Introducing topics that are stalking horses for topics that have been already been debated and or interrupting a topic to continue a debate on a separate/unrelated issue i.e. justifying a comment in a previous unrelated topic. or axe grinding.

Foxy,
I thought that your No1 "The act of purposely antagonising others on the internet" Was called flaming.

I think a troll is someone who persistantly raises the same topic.

However I would like to see Graham's view on this term, after all he decides whats allowable and what is not.

What anoys me is that one cannot express a contrary view on subjects like illegal immigrants, multiculturalism, forced marriages, high immigration or allowed FGM, without being immediatly being labeled a racist, right wing,islamphobic or xenaphobic by CJM, Sancho or Ginx. These will not argue the issue but use personal attack to try and intimidate.