Whilst computer-mediated communication (CMC) can benefit users by providing quick and easy communication between those separated by time and space, it can also provide varying degrees of anonymity that may encourage a sense of impunity and freedom from being held accountable for inappropriate online behaviour. As such, CMC is a fertile ground for studying impoliteness, whether it occurs in response to perceived threat (flaming), or as an end in its own right (trolling). Currently, first and secondorder definitions of terms such as im/politeness (Brown and Levinson 1987;

This paper investigates the phenomenon known astrolling— the behaviour of being deliberately antagonistic or offensive via computer-mediated communication (CMC), typically for amusement’s sake. Having previously started to answer the question,what is trolling?(Hardaker 2010), this paper seeks to answer the next question,how is trolling carried out?To do this, I use software to extract 3,727 examples of user discussions and accusations of trolling from an eighty-six million word Usenet corpus. Initial findings suggest that trolling is perceived to broadly fall across a cline withcovert strategiesandovert strategiesat each pole. I create a working taxonomy of perceived strategies that occur at different points along this cline, and conclude by refining my trolling definition.

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