A common troll trait is to dig up arguments from the past and try to focus on them instead of the current issue. This technique is used to try to sidestep a current argument or to insult a poster when the troll feels cornered. A good example would be for the troll to claim that the opponent is ignorant because he or she couldn't do this or that, based on the earlier issue, trying to draw focus on an alledged flaw from the past to diminish the ...
A common technique of the troll is to use "One for all" logic and it is commonly expressed by replying to a poster and claiming that it is in contradiction to earlier views. Usually the earlier views are attributed to "you guys" which is an unnamed and unreferenced group of people that supposedly was in agreement over this contradicting view, and it is implied (but never outright claimed, nor supported) that the current poster is or was part o...
Snipping out large chunks of unrelated material isn't really a troll trademark, but doing a little "creative snipping" or "quote forging" is, such as something like this:
This is the act of wilfully "misinterprete" someone else. Poster A may say something like "People like you are a disgrace to mankind", and poster B may respond with "So you think that honest people is a disgrace to mankind?" even though it is perfectly obvious that poster A did not mean that, since the implication was not that poster B was honest, but something that would be a disgrace to mankind.
When the troll gets tangled up in his lies and obfuscation in a way where there is no way to move his argument further, he will create a diversion. This is also where the trolls agenda is mostly shown and the troll will begin talking about other issues he or she is having in order to divert away from the current failure.
A troll always have an agenda, a goal or a motive. Something that drives the troll. This is very apparent when the troll hijacks threads or when he is creating antagonizing threads.
Role Reversal, in short, means that the troll interpretes what was written to be about the writer, not the troll.
When the troll can't respond with actual arguments, he will more often than not respond with insults and personal attacks. By insulting the "opponent", the troll hopes to divert attention away from his lack of argument and to start an argument over the insult instead.
As mentioned - any given troll is often met with substantiated facts and in response to that he will reply by obfuscating, lying, changing subject, or perhaps forging material.
Any given troll will likely be met with actual argument based on actual facts, which are substantiated and objective. The troll is then backed in to a corner where the lies or misinformation he has been telling just doesn't work anymore. The troll might then be inclined to "counter" the substantiated facts with a retort and declare victory. Only thing is that the refutation lacks any kind of actual substantiated facts, just lots of hand-waving...
When a troll has issues with a specific person (or several), the troll will be inclined to bring up this issue whenever it is humanly possible, even if it means to enter a totally unrelated thread to post a lengthy post about why poster X is stupid as a reply to something that had nothing to do with X at all.
Entire essays could be written on this particular criteria. Suffice it to say, that a troll is often eager to project his own shortcomings upon others so his own will be less obvious. For instance, a troll is often found accusing its "opponents" of the things he himself is being accused of, often using the same phrasing. The troll does this so that a casual reader who isn't informed will see these labels in reference to not only the trolls act...
A troll needs to accuse or claim things about their opponents, and since substantiating claims is time consuming, the troll is likely to accuse people without substantiation. This is of course closely related to obfuscation, since most of the time when the troll actually does offer substantiation, it's based on the trolls own obfuscation.
Sometimes the "time limited" usenet media isn't enough for the troll and his agenda, and he needs to create material in another media to antagonize other people, usually a web page. Michael has created several of these, of course, with the sole intention of antagonizing specific persons.
In a trolls "off-time" he might be inclined to do some research about his opponents and gather quotes about them from the past, or from other forums or groups, to use as ammunition. An example this is this post from Michael where he has quote scavanged from usenet about MR_ED_of_course.
A troll needs attention to his trolling, so whenever he is in a lengthy thread arguing only with one or a few posters, the troll is likely to break out of that thread and start another thread that will be one way to evade the first thread and also draw more attention from more people.
A troll is likely to end up in situations where he has made some really wild claims about something. When facts and proof is posted, the troll needs to ignore or evade that in order to keep up appearances. This is usually done by snipping it out of a followup and then claim something hasn't been proven, or replying to proof and using diversion or ad hominem's to divert attention away from the proof.
This is a trolls main weapon. Most trolls are not very good debaters or have very good or compelling arguments, so it's of outmost importance that they are well versed in obfuscation instead. This is mainly noticeable when their "opponents" say something that has even the slightest chance to be misinterpreted. So even if this misinterpretation is the most far fetched on can think of, it's naturally the only valid way it could possibly be inter...
What defines a troll? That would seem to be an odd question to say the least - but sometime you meet trolls that for reasons unknown refuses to acknowledge that they are trolls, as if that somehow would affect their credibility or something. Obviously, these peoples credibility is already long lost. So, the idea is that you need a list of criteria for someone being a troll to just check for ever such person you come across, and to show them ju...
