Please don't feed the trolls

[Terry Reedy]

Trolling, among other things, is fishing with a moving line, especially 
with a revolving lure, as from a moving boat.  A troll, among other 
things, is that method or the lure used.

On the internet, 'troll' is used metaphorically.  A troll is a flashy 
post designed to catch peoples emotions and hook them into responding. 
Trolling is posting such posts.  People do this either out of compulsion 
or for entertainment.

Quite separately, a troll in Scandinavian folklore is an unpleasant 
mythical creature living in a cave, or perhaps under or around a bridge. 
Bridge trolls are reputed to disrupt communication by travel.

Fishermen would not call a person trolling for fish a troll.  It would 
be an insult.  On the internet, we do call people trolling trolls, again 
methphorically, because they disrupt communication.

The proper response to trolls is to not feed them by responding as they 
wish.  When people respond, they continue trolling, and a moderator has 
to ban them.

People reading python-list posts on google groups or comp.lang.python 
should not help them evade their bans by quoting them.

On 3/6/2021 2:11 PM, Bonita Montero, responding to a banned troll for at 
least a third time:

> Someone who says that he is capable of writing a compiler that
> translates every language has megalomania. No one can do this.

We certainly need not believe so until it is done.

But we do not know whether X is an actual megalomaniac acting like a 
troll or an actual troll acting like a megalomaniac.  The same can apply 
to any other character type that can lead to trolling or be assumed as a 
pose by a troll.

In Spanish, bonito/a means a pretty male/female.  By coincidence, it is 
also a tuna-like fish caught by trolling.  (Decades ago, my father 
caught one on a boat one a Mexican river/lagoon.)  Please unhook 
yourself and swim away.


-- 
Terry Jan Reedy