"Not by the hair on my chinny chin chin"

Lifted from comments on trolls:

I honestly don’t think there are any real “trolls” at this site. Trolls are malicious and their only intent is to sabotage websites. They might post hundreds of irrelevant posts with the only purpose of discouraging people from visiting that site.

I guess I’m more interested in how a discussion might influence a neutral third party who happens to “eavesdrop.” I’ve always thought that troll tactics always fail when judged by that test. Most people see through that kind of thing.

When somebody simply negates the interlocutor’s position and reiterates this until the other sides gives up responding, that’s perhaps “winning the argument” technically, but it’s not a discussion.

I think the summary of what defines a troll is pretty much (attempts of) derailing the discourse by a variety of tactics, including diversion, noise, and “draining” energy by engaging others in fruitless arguments, if need be repeatedly.

Treat trolls like cockroaches. Do as much as you can to squish the ones who pop up often, but don’t be surprised when another turns up later.

-like an itch they are hard to ignore, but made worse by scratching.i don’t believe the “highly intelligent” or exactly the “agenda” thing…because while their positions are predictable and seem to fit some political groups talking points, there logic runs from bad

So while it is a mistake to feed the trolls, sometimes you can drive them back under their bridge with a good logical clubbing.