Internet Trolls

Often this sort of message is crossposted [posted to several newsgroups at once] to several unrelated newsgroups -- as this one was. Part of a troll's strategy (that is, assuming they have brains and can formulate a strategy) is to cause an argument among several newsgroups, eMail lists, ...

"Shhhhhh, please keep very quiet, child".

"Okay, Papa, but there is a lot of mumbling going on near us. And a really bad smell."

"Don't worry, it's just a Troll -- mostly harmless, some bad habits, but you're too young to hear all about that."

"Papa, what's it doing here?"

"We can never know it's motives or what it is doing -- they are too different from the rest of us. Perhaps it was attracted by our sense of fellowship and the energy of all of us working together toward our shared goal. Perhaps it saw that the weekend ended without having had a date with a human."

"Will it stay long?"

"We can't be sure how long it will stay, but sometimes they feed off of what we say here -- it will probably leave sooner if we all stop paying attention and talking to it because that's what it feeds on."

[A "troll" is a post by email, newsgroup, or other message forum which is "off-topic" and posted for reasons of inciting the equivalent of a net riot.]

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