I’ve inadvertently “trolled” a thread or two, but it is usually because I take a dissenting opinion or view in a thread and people dismiss me with ERMERGERD SHE BE TROLLING!
It is pretty easy to dismiss someone’s view if you say they are just being a troll when often times it is really because you just don’t like what they are saying.
Those who troll for the purpose of trolling are just passing on in the virtual world what they receive in the real world.
They’re at the bottom of whatever dungheap they’re in and there’s no one to take out their frustrations on in real life so they take it online where they can piss someone off without a significant chance of getting their teeth kicked in.
I am frankly quite surprised TheCrow was available for a username.:eek:
Thanks, Doc. You clarified my response quite nicely. Personality trait suits my opinion well.
People who return to troll a message board over a multi-year period are beyond help. The death of their current online persona is the only recourse. Until the next time. And so it goes.
For most trolls, I’d say a combination of immaturity, boredom, and because they can get away with it, thanks to anonymity.
The above also depends on how you define “troll”. Some people have “troll-tendencies”, but they’re actually obnoxious and indifferent, in person or otherwise.
I was accused of trolling one time here and maybe I was. In my own mind I did not perceive it as trolling. I felt their was a hidden agenda regarding a certain topic and I wanted to try and bring it to the surface. I got no enjoyment from pissing people off but I did get some satisfaction in that once certain people became emotional they seemed to answer my questions more honestly. I feel like some topics are better explored when a little trolling is employed.
Sort of like our own God-given gadfly, eh Socrates? 
There’s different kinds of trolls and I think they’re motivated by different kinds of behavior. There’s the trolls that go around and just try to enflame people, maybe making racist and sexist remarks. I think they’re just people who are interested inflaming people and getting attention however they can, and it’s not really all that different from kids who might act up and scream and yell just to be the center of attention. I don’t think there’s anything particularly complicated about that sort of troll.
There’s other types that I think can be harmless fun. For instance, there’s the classic rick roll, which isn’t really any different from an online practical joke. Or you might see someone telling an elaborate just believeable story that isn’t true. Sure, some people do that sort of thing just to make other people miserable, but I think it’s more in line with the original meaning of troll, as in trolling bait when fishing, just seeing how long you can pull something like that before they realize it. If it’s all done in good fun, both people can get a laugh out of it.
Unfortunately, it seems like most of the trolls on message boards are just there for attention or to mess with other people and I can only imagine that the largest factor to it is the anonymity that the internet provides.
I can sometimes see where it’d be nicer to spend more of my time with bits of people, instead of relatively intact ones. 
You do realize I was joking when I mentioned bitter compounds and percentages, right? Although all squares are rectangles, not all rectangles are squares.
**Exhibit A **(my statement): “most internet trolls are manchildren or bored housewives.”
**Exhibit B **(your interpretation of my statement): “most manchildren/housewives are trolls.”
A != B. Being lonely and hobbyless and jobless and isolated doesn’t mean a person is *likely *to be a troll. However, people who have no friends, no family, no hobbies, and no job are, by definition, abnormal.
Some men just like to watch the world burn.
To me it’s not unlike bullying, they provoke people to get a strong response.
There’s sites that PAY you for trolling? 
I’ve been posting on internet message boards for 12 years and have interacted with all kinds of characters. I can say that trolls are a quite diverse group; ranging from harmless jokesters to annoying busybodies to very malevolent harrassers and stalkers.
Some are those sad and sorry people that Rachel has mentioned. Others are quite normal IRL…and has these vitual second lives.
There are obnoxious and awkward people who get mistaken as trolls. So are people who have unpopular opinions.
Then you got people who troll all the time; and then there’s people who are semi-trolls, normal members who sometimes go into trolling modes for whatever reasons.
Most trolls are probably just bored and immature, yes. In terms of people who troll over and over again - we have returnees who keep trying to come back after being banned - yes, they tend to have serious personal problems. Some probably have OCD-type conditions, some who kind of have a desperate need to be heard, and others who need to take their frustrations out on everybody else by trying to provoke them.
You don’t think FOX News reporters work for free, do you?
Sometimes there’s a fine line between trolling and battling group think, something that’s more frequent at forums with a more common theme. Champions of marijuana decriminalization, for example, are often derided as “trolls” at Free Republic. Critics of the NFL’s draft process are ridiculed as “trolls” at FootballGuys.com.
I’m mostly on message boards for relaxed conversation but I confess that sometimes seeing some issue that goes unchallenged because of the forum in which it appears stirs me to combat.