To not understand the definition of a "Troll"?

[justkeeponsmiling]

I usually lurk on less controversial topics (style + beauty, etc) but have recently been spending some time on the AIBU threads and have therefore only just started seeing people being reported as Trolls.
I don't really get it... I always thought trools are cyber bullies? But the threads I've seen reported didn't seem to be abusive, nor threatening.
Anybody who cam enlighten me?

Troll is completely over and misused on here, by all parties.

Trolls can be bullies, but they also deliberately post inflammatory statements just to get people bickering or upset e.g. women should stay in the kitchen

I find it quite hard to spot them tbh, unless it's a long thread it could be just as likely to be a dickhead (aka someone I disagree with ) there's a lot of them about. In general people troll about things they don't really care about one way or the other and just enjoy shit stirring.

Unless it's a very dull troll that just tosses out the insults and fits the bullying label I don't really mind if it generates an interesting thread.

On twitter it just means anyone who disagrees with you
On here it seems to be unlikely sounding scenarios.

Although you do get people who create a whole fantasy life and troll people that way.

There was a woman who pretended to have a really poorly baby and got loads of sympathy and support - some of it financial - on an American forum I think. It's a compulsive liar, Munchhausen kind of impulse I think. The internet is a draw to people with those tendencies.

A troll is a liar and / or shit shirrer.

People claim someone is a troll if they don't like what they are saying. But simply disagreeing with someone doesn't make you a troll, nor does being an unpleasant person in itself make you a troll! You have to be actually lying or trying to cause trouble to be a troll.

You can normally pick out a troll if they use sneary goady language, in an unconstructive way, that doesn't contribute to the debate.

I find it can spill into the way people who don't agree with a debate, then get too "involved" dont stay objective and they get themselves so wound up, they start prodding away beyond anything reasonable. There is a thread at this moment about baby food where I wouldnt class as having troll-like responses, but I do feel people are sounding quite abusive, using foul words etc, when I genuinely dont think the original poster meant anything more that expressing an opinion. People do take things far too personally IMO

The shroud of anonymity has a lot to do with this type of behaviour. People let rip and behave antisocially, not respecting people's opnions, when they could just take a step back from time to time.

It can get a bit Jeremy Kyle, and people like seeing a good scrap, but not nice!

When posts are deleted or "brought down" it isnt necessarily due to trolling, it could just be about a topic that is deemed so controversial or sensitive that someone reports it and it is removed because of that.

The original definition was a fishing term. You drag bait through the water behind the boat hoping for a bite. Trolling for fish - from the same root word as trawling.

Back in the dawn of the internet there were people who would go into newsgroups - the forerunners of web boards like this - and post things that on the surface were relevant and not offensive, but which were guaranteed to start a fight. Trolling for trouble. It's something of an artform. One of my favourites was a chap who went into a white-power forum and called for direct action against tanning salons.

It's also a marketing technique: release material that causes a shitstorm and you get more publicity than you would with plain advertising. This is the Daily Mail's entire business model - they're selling advertising space based on the clicks they get on their site from the outrage they stir up.

The word seems to be getting applied to anyone who' nasty on the internet, and becoming meaningless as a result.