The level of vindictiveness on PM is a bit alarming. Yes, we've had some trouble with trolls. We've had some disagreements about how to deal with them. I don't think the site has suffered from trolling so much that it has lost what makes it a great resource and community. Trolling here is distracting and annoying, but it has yet to endanger the overall quality of the site.

I'm not sure why people are suggesting courses of action such as labeling a node as trollish just because the poster has some negative XP. A new monk could easily have a couple of nodes that have bad coding ideas in them or are a little too brash without being a true troll. Do we really want to welcome them to the site by labeling nodes as trollish until they are vetted? That seems like a drastic overreaction that, while well intentioned, would likely prove to be counterproductive.

I do kind of like the idea of multiple approvals for nodes whose authors have negative XP. It's much more private and less accusative. It might even work to need two until the monk is past initiate, and three or more (depending on the level of negative XP perhaps) for those with negative XP. It still seems like something that takes an awful lot of time away from the purpose of the site, which is to discuss all things Perl.

I am one of those who sometimes mistakes a bullheaded but honestly concerned person for a troll and sometimes vice versa. I'd imagine most of us have done so on occasion. Without a pattern of activity from someone showing a clear trend, it can be hard to tell if someone is crossing the line between heated discussion and outright trolling. Trolling and flamebaiting arise not from some abyss somewhere, but because people respond to it. People don't respond to it because they approve of it, but because they aren't paying attention. That leads me to the social fix for trolling: pay attention.