Talking about trolls
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_trollIn forums where most users are similar to each other, outsiders may be perceived as trolls simply because they do not fit into the social norms of that group. It can sometimes be difficult to distinguish between a user who merely has different values, views, or ideas, and a user who is intentionally trolling.
Examples
Off topic messages: Those that are irrelevant to the focus of the forum. This can also be done in the middle of an existing thread to attempt to hijack the thread, or otherwise change the topic at hand. Off topic messages usually occur when a member has been completely disproved in a serious debate thus, causing that member to use his or her other multiple pseudonyms for the purposes of changing the subject matter. These disruptions may result in the degeneration of a well informed thread into a heated juvenile exchange consisting of insults and childish accusations between multiple parties. Such an incident may have been the case in Flyordie.com [4] when it decided to censor all freedoms of speech relating to 9/11 evidence disclosure topics [5]
Page breaking: Filling up fields with large pictures or characters to make previous posts unreadable. A skilled troll will use an extremely wide and narrow picture that blends into the forum background to make it harder to catch.
Offensive media: Annoying sound files or disturbing pictures in a message, or linking to shock sites that contain such media. Often these links are disguised as legitimate links. Inflammatory messages, including racist, sexist, classist or otherwise needlessly hateful comments.
Opinionated statements: Posting messages expressing their own opinions as generally accepted facts without offering any proof or analysis.
Spoiling: Deliberately revealing the ending or an important part of movie, book, game etc.
Bumping an old discussion, or rehashing a highly controversial past topic, particularly in smaller online communities.
Deliberate and repeated misspelling of other people's nicks in order to disturb or irritate them in a conversation.
Promising nonexistent pornography to people who post in the forum, producing an interminable flood of "please send" messages (especially common in the alt.sex Usenet hierarchy in the mid-1990s) [6] [7]
