2. The Psychopathological Troll
The psychopathological troll is motivated to participate in an internet forum by psychotic delusions or compulsions, or by a neurotic seeking of false self-esteem. The postings of a psychotic troll are unlikely to make any recognizable sense at all. On SOLO, the moderation of first posters effectively eliminates truly psychotic trolls. The neurotic troll either seeks to obtain false self-esteem by manipulating the reactions of others, or by demonstrating his "power" to destroy what others enjoy. The neurotic troll is often manipulative enough to make it past the initial moderation. However, on a Randian site such as SOLO, the neurotic troll's primacy of consciousness soon becomes evident: rather than respond substantively to the actual claims and arguments in the articles and posts he attacks, the neurotic troll twists and spins whatever he responds to, into whatever he has "the perfect answer" to. Then the original poster points out the manipulation and the neurotic troll is exposed. After two or three incidents of this type the neurotic troll usually gives up.
Originally Posted by basil
hammer
Bookmarks