I wrote: > "Z rejoices in the flames that his posts > inspire", which is more or less the factual content of "Z's posts are > trolls" [1] ...
Whoops, left out Footnote 1, which is my own take on the same topic as http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/T/troll.html : FWIW, the origin of this usage of "troll" has little to do with the squat ornery guys who live under bridges in fairy tales of Germanic origin. "Trolling" is a fishing technique in which a dense lure, shaped to dive, is dragged behind a moving boat to catch deep-water fish. As I recall it, in the glory days of FlameNet (Usenet) groups like sci.physics and talk.religion, some people considered it sport to drop a carefully crafted post into the waters -- preferably not crudely inflammatory, but rather a reasonable-sounding comment with a semi-subtle logical flaw on which the half-sane posters would pounce, followed by a mass flamewar. Another variation was to cross-post something inane to two or more flame-intensive groups and see if you could get the denizens to declare war on one another. I recall one frequent alt.folklore.urban (and talk.bizarre) poster, a Ted somebody, who was particularly skilled at "trolling for net.kooks", and other a.f.u/t.b regulars would call "troll" when they caught him at it. Thus the verb "troll" ("Ted's trolling again") became a noun ("This was another of Ted's trolls") and then its referent slipped ("Ted's such a troll!"). So at least as some of us use the term, a "troll" is one who is gaming the social dynamics of the list in order to warm his miniscule soul at the flames, not one who believes himself to be debating a point of significance (however ham-handedly). In my opinion, the term doesn't really fit Andrew; but YMMV. Cheers, - Michael