As for trolling, I will take a serious stab at the question, since you asked. I think you and Paul are right to a certain extent, in that bloggers (like newspaper columnists, of which I am one) inevitably overstate their case a little, or exaggerate for the sake of emphasis, and use other rhetorical tools in order to a) make their posts (or columns) more interesting to read and b) get people fired up so that they either tell others, or blog their own response, or post a comment or preferably all three.

That said, however, it’s easy to crank up the rhetorical engine a little too high, and then you run the risk of detracting from your argument (assuming you have one in the first place). Setting up straw men, logical fallacies, ad hominem arguments, etc. are all examples of that. To the extent that you actually want to convince people of something, overdoing the rhetoric is a bad thing, and that’s what I mean by trolling.

No doubt I have been guilty of some or all of those things myself. And no doubt some of that was driven by a desire to get links, or to get on techmeme.com or whatever. And maybe I just like to poke Dave now and then just to get a reaction (although I admit it’s like shooting fish in a barrel). I don’t think of that as trolling.

I apologize for the long-winded answer.

Debate isn’t profitable. Ideological extremism is.

You still haven’t explained what exactly is the harm in trolling — such as when someone baits Dave Winer, for example?

No disagreement on the Mentos video though — it’s hilarious.

But you are quite right, reading different points of view does help in many cases, which is why I think techmeme and other meme-trackers can actually help the debate (provided we all don’t just read the stuff we already agree with).

I think it was Andre Gide who said “Believe those who are seeking the truth; doubt those who find it.”