What determines a troll on Yahoo Answers? What exactly is a troll?

An Internet troll is someone who posts offensive, controversial, or divisive material on an Internet community. Trolls are an unfortunately common occurrence on many communities across the Internet, and there are various steps which can be taken to combat them. If you are currently struggling with an Internet troll, the best thing to do is to walk away, since trolls feed on attention, and they will usually disappear if they are ignored. The evolution of the Internet troll was a slow process which began as computer users started to more widely adopt the Internet. At first, the term referred merely to someone who was “trolling” for a response or opinion, in the same way that fishing boats cast out large nets to troll for a catch. Over time, trolls grew more aggressive, and the term began to be used specifically to refer to someone irritating or hurtful. In this sense, a troll could be compared to the nasty creatures of Scandinavian mythology which are also known as trolls.

Internet trolls are people who create problems for others on different sites while contributing nothing positive. There are many on Yahoo Answers, they report extremely small violations, which in many cases aren't even violations; they like to post inane childish humour, they also give "thumbs down" constantly often with no valid reason. Because of trolls, to protect yourself, if you haven't done so already, you may find it best to edit your info to keep your questions and answers hidden that makes it tougher them to stalk you around the site. You can also change your avatar and i.d.or post in other than your usual categories. Trolls often hang out at controversial sections such as religion, homosexuality and polls, when someone posts what they disagree with, they report them. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll_(Inte%E2%80%A6 According to yahoo: A "troll" is someone who intentionally and persistently posts inflammatory messages about sensitive topics to bait users into responding or provoke a confrontation. We also consider people to be trolls when they persistently misuse product features such as the ratings system to negatively target others.

a troll is someone who post inflammatory contenrt on yahoo and continually do it on a regular basis.

Yahoo says: "A "troll" is someone who intentionally and persistently posts inflammatory messages about sensitive topics to bait users into responding or provoke a confrontation. We also consider people to be trolls when they persistently misuse product features such as the ratings system to negatively target others." You will hear the term misused in talking about a good user who correctly reports violations. A good user who correctly reports violations, no matter how many, is NOT a troll. You can use it for a person who incorrectly reports many or targets another user incorrectly, but there are very few of these type trolls, mostly they exist in in P&S and R&S.

A troll is someone who posts mean things about others because their mommies didn't hug them enough.

A troll in simple terms is a person that having fun online, they really don't cause any harm just to sensitive people online, some of them are kind of funny, different types of trolls online the type some dislike is reporter trolls, if the question is sensitive they might answer it with funny remarks, report it , or thumbs down a lot of answers to the question, Y!a has setup guildlines on trolling if to serious might suspend their account and they just come back and form another account, anything can be done with trolls not really sometimes it's good to ignore their answers and pick the best answer, we can't simply call someone a troll because the question might have a little humor to it but really trying to get a point across in a funny way, i have to admit besides answering question by experince in my favorite category, i sometimes answer what some consider trolling question and not the only one not a troll but again see they cause no real harm none i have seen on Y!a, if really want to see some real trolling go to the religion category they seems to love to pick with some very religious people