Please stop....

The MIS-use of the word "troll" in this blog and now actually printed in the Modesto Bee has gone too far.  When employing the term "troll" in relation to intenet users, there is a specific meaning attached.  Although, of course, anyone can use any term to describe another person or thier actions, but ,when a word that has a meaning different than how it is put into use is applied, it often makes the writer look purposefully ignorant.  Yes, I could write a 1000 word essay on what a horrible right-wing conservative President Obama is, that would be entirely within my rights and would most likely not break of the TOS of most blogs/forums.  It would appear to be quite ignorant of commonly used political terminology, but I could do it.  This is how I view this mis-use of the word "troll".   A simple Google search performed with the words "what is an internet troll" will yield many sites that give definations and explainations of internet trolls and thier behavior. 

http://www.google.com/search?q=what+is+an+internet+troll&rls=com.microsoft:en-us&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&startIndex=&startPage=1

Internet trolls are malicious simply for the sake of being malicious.  They almost never really have a stake in a debate or discussion and are only present to get people upset.  So if someone promotes a viewpoint you personally dislike, that does NOT make someone a troll.  If a moderator of a forum ignores you and your pleas, that does NOT make them a troll.  If someone feels strongly about an issue and writes a impassioned yet angry post and in it insults another user, that is NOT a troll.  A troll sole purpose is to enrage and cause reaction - they do not care about the topic at hand and are not looking to get a point across except for a feeling of control by causing people to react based on thier actions.

Now to be fair, perhaps the people using the term "troll" in relation to actions of others on a forum/blog or whatever, really do intend to compare them to the classic mythical creatures that appear in fantasy stories.  If that is case, then this is still useful information to take into account, because without defining exactly how you mean to use this term, when used in the context of internet forums, the meaning will, by default, be assumed to mean the previously explained "internet troll", not the trolls that live with the fairies and orges in the magical forests of imagination.