Hacker News Reader

There is a rather huge difference in the psychology of the two. A committed racist is dangerous, while your average troll has some internal issues that have a low danger level. Trolls can escalate, but the type of people they talk about in the article are already there.

"If it looks like a duck..."

I would be interested where you fall on zero tolerance.

IMO there is an enormous difference. I've always defined hatred in terms like "motivated to kill, for real." Less serious is anger. Far less serious is mischief, which is where I feel most trolling sits.

Put another way, if a person is being irritating (in text, at that), and you find yourself feeling terrorized, there's a massive failure of communication occurring.

Yes because trolling is not necessarily hateful. I would go as far as to say that for the most part it isn't.

Agreed. Trolling, in the classic/historical internet sense, is trying to irritate others by baiting them into an online argument that they take very seriously. Trolls are generally pests, but not hateful.