Trolls

The role of trolls in Consumerium is unclear. There is not even an agreement on what is a troll and what they generally do. What is clear is that some think it is insulting to call someone a troll, and others take pride in being trolls, or called trolls. There is just no agremeent at all. What one thinks tends to depend on what one feels about:

• identifying people - a sysop usually tries to identify a troll, by outing, but a troll usually insists on staying anonymous or ambiguous.
• free speech - which trolls usually support
• reputation - a troll usually thinks reputation leads to stupidity
• authority - which trolls don't like
• libel - which some trolls do, and others try to avoid being done to them, by staying trolls and not letting libellers know their names or where they are.

The article on Internet troll (Wikipedia) seems to say they are pests, but the troll (Meta-Wikipedia) article seems to say they serve an important audit role, by driving bad contributors out of a project, or harassing stupid ideas to death, or just generally knowing how a project can evolve to work better. There is more on this in Talk:urban ecology.

What should trolls do and not do on Consumerium? How does one recognize but not be too trusting of a friendly troll? Enter your beliefs here: