From: ptkwt@... (Phil Tomson)
Date: 2005-04-24T02:49:40+09:00
Subject: [OT] Dealing with trolls:the age-old debate

Given a troll's visit to the newsgroup (word on the street is that it's 
happened recently:), there are two opinions on dealing with said troll:

1) Ignore the troll (I tend to come down on this side)

2) Answer the troll so as to demolish his arguments.

It's intersting that this debate goes back some 3000 years.  Substitute 
'fool' for 'troll' and you find this in the book of Proverbs (a Hebrew 
book of Wisdom):

"Do not answer a fool according to his folly, Lest you be like him" 
(26:4)

(Or, the modern paraphrase: "Don't wrestle a pig: All you get is muddy 
and the pig has way too much fun.")

However the next verse seems to indicate that the author is having an 
internal debate about the issue:

"Answer a fool as his folly deserves, Lest he be wise in his own eyes" 
(26:5).

A contradiction?  Some would say so.  I tend to look at it more as an 
internal debate - sort of like Hamlet's "To be or not to be" soliloquy.

So it would seem to be an age-old connundrum.  Be wise.

Phil