It’s not troll hunting. It’s only troll hunting if you post on a thread “troll!” “Or I don’t believe a word of this,” or similar. Even MN HQ will take note if you e.g. find a serious inconsistency in posts. Also some people e.g. post about their relationship, and context is everything. E.g. someone might post that they have the most loving partner ever, does everything for them and the kids and has now done one thing which might be a red flag. And advance search might show that they have a history with this partner. He constantly belittles them, puts them down, has already had an affair and they’ve talked about leaving him for a couple of years now. Someone might then point out that there is more context to this, before the “well obviously he’s a loving partner most of the time, you should talk it through” posts start.
I might do an advance search if something seems like bullshit or is so extreme that you can’t imagine someone would join just to post about that. E.g. someone posts that they really need someone to be there for them because they’re on their way to hospital with their sick child and don’t know if they’re going to pull through, at 3 in the morning, and advance search shows they’re a first time poster. I usually just report those and invariably they disappear.
Or the other day there was a poster who I was sure I remembered as starting some kind of thread talking about how unreasonable someone else was, and then flouncing when people didn’t agree with her, and then did the same on another topic, so they had form, iyswim.
I actually don’t do it all that often, but I do do it. But I tend just to skim read rather than going into each thread and reading all posts, but will maybe go into a thread if the OP was posted by that person....