Who Let the Trolls Out?

Posted on December 10, 2005

Jim Kukral at Revenews has an article that says the message board trolls have spread to the blogosphere. He identifies two different types of blog trolls.

1. Blog Commenter Troll - One who floats in and out of many different blogs and leaves anonymous or non-anonymous comments that fit the "troll" trademark code of, well, shame?
2. Blog Owner Troll - The blog owner troll is the top of the food chain in blog trolls. The blog owner troll of course owns a blog, and uses the blog to create "troll-like" blog entries, sparking conversation from other blog trolls, and occasionally luring an ignorant non blog-troll into his/her trap.

Blog comment trolls are nothing new and have been around since comments on blogs existed. Webopedia offers the following definition of trolls which works well for blog comment trolls. The definition is: "(v.) (1) To deliberately post derogatory or inflammatory comments to a community forum, chat room, newsgroup and/or a blog in order to bait other users into responding."

Blog comment trolls are a continual pest just like they continue to be on message boards. Google shows over 11,000 results for blog trolls. Trolls and spam are one reason some bloggers started moderating their comments. And having their comments blocked is probably a reason some blog commenter trolls started blogs. You just have to try and ignore the trolls wherever they appear.

Blog owner trolls may be a new type of troll but a blog that was always negative would probably eventually be ignored. Snarky and humorous blogs are different and can find an audience but only if they are well-written.