The Rise of the Troll

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Trolls are not just pranksters on the margins. They are in replies, DMs, comments, and email inboxes, sharpening their knives for humiliation, baiting those with whom they disagree, and blurring the line between a joke and a threat.

has examined trolling as an internet behavior for decades. (First, a minute for definitions: Trolling is a centuries-old term . That word is a possible of trolling in the .) In a about the evolution of Wikipedia, the writer and historian Marshall Poe recounted the tactics of a prominent early user known as “The Cunctator” (Latin for “procrastinator” or “delayer”), who pushed for a no-hierarchy, no-constraints version of the site. “Cunc,” as he was known, spammed pages, left inflammatory comments, and, most notably, baited the Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger into a prolonged . (Sanger left Wikipedia in 2002, later citing )