What Is A Messageboard Troll?

To "troll" means to allure, to fish, to entice or to bait. An internet troll who hangs out on messageboards is someone who fishes for people's confidence and, once found, exploits it, attacks it, or tries to gain control of a messageboard thread or topic area by causing fights, arguments and total disruption to the topic.

Whilst the vast majority of internet messageboard posters are bona fide, there are undoubtedly some trolls out there.

What does a Net messageboard troll do? They lurk on messageboards and then after a period of time when they appear semi-friendly or even someone to trust they may:

1. Cause minor irritation to some people
2. Cause major upset to some people by direct accusations or attacks
3. Try to control the thread & thus destroy its original focus
4. Attempt to cause fighting and total disruption and ultimately destruction of the board.

Internet trolls delight in deception. It allows them to feel powerful and in control. They also love to initiate attacks that they know will cause fights.

At HairTalk we ask that you ignore obvious attacks or troll activities by not posting a response. We also ask that you email either the moderator of a thread or me (shelton@hairboutique.com) to report a suspect troll. Moderators have editing and delete capabilites for their threads and we encourage them to make decisions on the deletion of inappropriate posts.

We will start by deleting suspected troll posts if they appear inappropriate or highly suspect of troll activity. If they continue to post or accelerate their attacks, we will ban them from the boards. Please note that a large majority of trolls will NOT register as board members as this makes them more visible to the administrators. We do track IP addresses of all posters (registered or not) on these boards.

Please remember that the HairTalk messageboards are the private property of HairBoutique.com. While we welcome posters and try very hard to avoid any type of unnecessary censorship we will not tolerate any posters that attack or attempt to stir up fighting on major disruption on the boards.

Thank you in advance for your help in helping us keep the HairTalk boards friendly and "on topic".

Best wishes,
Karen Shelton
HairBoutique.com

Karen.
* I actually thought some of the points brought up by Brent were vaild and not necessarily trying to cause trouble, and I also thought Diane the Canadian woman had some good responses to Brent, but if you think he was trying to cause trouble you have the right to delete his post. It is your board.