I always wonder ...

[Grant Edwards]

On 2008-12-22, skip at pobox.com <skip at pobox.com> wrote:

> ... shouldn't people who spend all their time trolling be
> doing something else: studying, working, writing patches which
> solve the problems they perceive to exist in the troll
> subject?

I think you misunderstand the point of trolling.  The author of
a troll post doesn't actually care about the "problems" (and
may not even genuinely perceive them as problems).

> Is there some online troll game running where the players earn
> points for generating responses to their posts?

Yup. It's called Usenet.

I'm sure we all have our, um, "non-productive" hobbies and
forms of entertainment.  A well done troll [which, I admit, is
somewhat rare] is a bit of an art, and can be rather
entertaining to watch.  

Of course there's the other, much larger, category of posters
(sometimes confused with trollers): the lazy, ignorant
whingers.  Apart from being much more common, they're also much
less entertaining to everybody except the ranting flamer.

As you can see, Usenet is a rather complex eco-system with a
lot of niches...

-- 
Grant Edwards                   grante             Yow! What PROGRAM are they
                                  at               watching?
                               visi.com