Most people enjoy reading internet forum message boards, and many enjoy contributing their thoughts, opinions, and suggestions. Some people, however, enjoy “trolling” on internet forums and message boards. Trolling is the act of posting hateful or dishonest content with the goal of enraging or disgusting the other participants in the forum.

Identifying a forum troll can be tricky, because dedicated forum trolls know how to deceive and can be mistaken for legitimate posters for quite a long period of time.

Typical forum troll behavior includes:

a) Acting dumb and/or naïve to see how far they can get the regulars on a forum to go in offering honest help

b) Taking offense at perfectly innocent comments in an attempt to elicit long and profuse apologies from forum regulars

c) Posting inflammatory rhetoric, sometimes on-topic and sometimes not, in the hopes of starting that good old-fashioned internet brawl, the flame war

d) Making grandiose claims of one form or another, to see who they can effectively dupe into believing them

Dragging a forum troll into the honest light of day is necessary for a forum’s harmony and sometimes virtual survival. The forum troll will fight you on this, however, so be prepared.

Some of the tactics you can expect from your troll are:

a) Ignoring your attempts to out him/her. Many forum trolls ignore subtle messages or even outright accusations of troll behavior

b) Becoming defensive and disclaiming all knowledge of and culpability for their actions and words

c) Enthusiastically engaging you in battle, sometimes leading people to fight so strongly to out the forum troll that bystanders are led to defend the forum troll from these legitimate efforts

Use some caution, however, before you accuse someone of trolling. Sometimes, people really are naïve, or their grandiose claims are actually true, or their initial belligerent attitude hides a heart of gold.

You don’t want to chase away a sincere new person, or make the forum an uncomfortable place through your own actions.