Anonymous wrote:I would assume out of common boredom.

Agreed. These ppl have too much time on their hands. They need to get a job and work.

I'm going to go very meta and recursive here but I believe OP is trolling with this post about trolling.

Anonymous wrote:I am convinced that a non-trivial subset of the "trolls" are posts from Jeff meant to boost engagement.

No, the poor man doesn't have that kind of time, and most of the troll posts are on topics he couldn't care less about. He spends a large chunk of his time deleting troll posts that are reported to him, and cleaning up the Politics Forum

I am convinced that a non-trivial subset of the "trolls" are posts from Jeff meant to boost engagement.

^and then there are the people who don't know the writing rules of DCUM and post stuff with missing relevant facts, which annoys the heck of everyone. They sometimes get accused of trolling, because then they have to add information in subsequent posts that change the scenario dramatically.

Some of them are real because truth is stranger than fiction.

BUT - I get suspicious when I see several stories crop up with the same writing style, and the same overarching topic. There was a troll who specialized in MIL-son-DIL conflicts, and she became quite recognizable.

Recently several stories popped up about teens with mental rigidity who refused to do something perfectly normal, like join a sibling for dinner, or attend a relative's college graduation, for very petty reasons. It was very autistic-coded. One of the OPs strenuously denied being a troll or being the author of the other stories, so...? But the stories stopped after that.

Most of the posters here are telling the truth.