I am getting tougher on these trolls. I deleted this last obvious troll, Iron Mike aka Chirstina aka Janice aka Betty Goat aka Crystal. I set it so all new users need to be apporved by me or Taco before posting. Hope we can keep this board on topic, other than this troll, this board is going Great and I love the dicussions!
It's sad that such measures are necessary. On the other hand, the moderator of another hiking board always says that the effort devoted to screening gets to be quite small once the trolls figure out that they are not tolerated.
Why do trolls do it?
I believe that most trolls are sad people, living their lonely lives vicariously through those they see as strong and successful.
Disrupting a stable newsgroup gives the illusion of power, just as for a few, stalking a strong person allows them to think they are strong, too.
For trolls, any response is 'recognition'; they are unable to distinguish between irritation and admiration; their ego grows directly in proportion to the response, regardless of the form or content of that response.
Trolls, rather surprisingly, dispute this, claiming that it's a game or joke; this merely confirms the diagnosis; how sad do you have to be to find such mind-numbingly trivial timewasting to be funny?
Remember that trolls are cowards; they'll usually post just enough to get an argument going, then sit back and count the responses (Yes, that's what they do!).
