Signs of a Troll

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I don’t know what the signs are.

Typically they like to get a rise out of you. They may say stuff that's inflammatory or makes you angry - because they want to make you angry. They think it's funny.

I think there's different types of trolls.

There's people who are seen as trolls because of sincerely held views that are outside of the Overton window of a given community; there's also people who say extreme things in order to start arguments, as well as people who say absurd things in order to see how others engage with them. Generally though, it's for one's own amusement, whether it's driven by malice or just attention seeking.

As for identifying trolls, I tend to look for signs that one is arguing not in good faith. Like for example, if someone lays out a position and a rationale, receives a response that rebuts their rationale and then completely abandons their rationale while rejecting the response, I'd view that person as a troll.

I wouldn't treat everyone who's arguments make you frustrated or angry as a troll, because there's multiple reasons why one might feel angered in that situation and only some of them boil down to the other person was just seeking to upset you. In particular people often get angry when faced with an argument they can't effectively rebut, but devolving to trollnaming the other party doesn't do much but provide an emotional balm.