Is trollish behavior always malicious?

Trolling is trying to get a rise out of someone. Forcing them to respond to you, either through wisecracks, posting incorrect information, asking blatantly stupid questions, or other foolishness. However, trolling statements are never true or are ever meant to be construed as such. Nearly all trolled statements are meant to be funny to some people, so it does have some social/entertainment value.

"Trolling" isn't simply "harmful statements". Intentionally insulting/libellous statements are "flaming".

Just as bad as trolling is "Feeding the Trolls". This is when people say stuff that they know will prompt someone to respond with a trolled reply and/or replying to comments that are blatantly from a troll. This is especially true when a troll first makes his comment/reply, and (usually many) people respond, either trying to correct the troll, or express anger at the statement. At that point, the trolling was successful and has been fed. When encouraged by success and feeding, trolls often return.

Title question... Yes. It is. Even if some find it funny, it is disruptive, and thus malicious.

What is a troll?

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."

And here is the page where that comes from... http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/answers/abuse/abu...

So, you are probably correct in that most of the questions in the Religion & Spirituality section are trollish. They do intend to be inflammatory and bait users into responding or provoke a confrontation. I do not believe, however that they are just questions posted by uninformed people. A few moments posting reading questions there would quickly "inform" people as to what it was like there.

end of line

A "troll" is a person who normally likes to stir up bad feeling and gets a kick out of it. "Trollish behaviour" is when they ask a question which they know will stir up bad feeling/hatred towards others, and this could not be termed "uninformed people" because it's done deliberately.

Trolls

It is a generic term for those who abuse the system in one way or another

Spammers

Those that call others as trolls

Being rude

Those who ask the same question repeatedly

Those who are quick to report questions and answers.

Yes, unfortunately most of the R&S forum is populated by trolls.. There aren't as many trolls in the 'homework help' section, etc.. :)

cheers!

Oh! and I agree with the answer above me :)

It seems everyone has their own idea of what a troll actually is, so it depends who you ask.