Reply #15: 2 Basic varieties.

[Old and In the Way]

Trollus Dumbass{/b] - Recognizable by loud obnoxious statements, low post count (usually <10). Poor grammatical, social, and spelling skills. Trollus Dumbass can be persistant in his attempts to post and is often seen on site in packs of 2-4. Trollus wants to play, but usually cannot help him/herself and is quickly tombstoned before he can progress past minor irritant. Dumbass is likely to follow a rather formal and easily identifiable phrase code. Some of the popular riffs (with various spelling illiterations) are:

"DemacRATS are Traters" <notice the mandatory "RATS" inflection>

"If you like Saddam so much, why don't you go to Iraq?" (historically updated from China, Russia, and other enemies of paranoid Republicans)

"George W. Bush is our gratest President because he not afraid to fight terrorists" (Except, of course on 9/11)

Trollus Republicus Disinfoptus - A much more skilled and refined Troll. Extremely hard to recognize and rarely outed. Superior communication skills and can readily adapt to his surroundings. Able to discuss ideas and concepts in full sentences with minimal insults. Trollus prefers refuge behind a candidate icon (except Kerry) which is handy protection. While not a lot of time is spent extolling the virtues of the candidate whose icon he uses, it provides great cover to attack all other Democratic candidates/ideas at will with devastating effective results. Republicus can quickly drive up the BP of many innocent DU posters and has been known to take out ("name deleted") more than a few DUer's on a single thread. Interestingly, the more time Republicus spends at the DU, the more at risk he is on becoming enlightened thereby losing his ability to troll.

At that point, he just becomes another DUer who loves to argue.

Hope this helped.