From: "Brown, R Ken" <brownrk1@texaco.com>
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 1998 22:53:10 -0700 (PDT)
To: Tim Griffiths <bbt@mudspring.uplb.edu.ph>
Subject: RE: your mail
Message-ID: <896C7C3540C3D111AB9F00805FA78CE2013F837A@MSX11002>
MIME-Version: 1.0
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> Bernardo B. Terrado[SMTP:bbt@mudspring.uplb.edu.ph]
> 
> It's funny, some of the mails sent by some mailers are being
> referred by some as a troll. WHY?

It is a variant  spelling of the word "trawl"  - a large 
fishing net dragged behind a ship ("trawler") to catch
lots of fish (and prawns and shrimps and  dolphins and 
seals and turtles and penguins...)

So it is a message sent out in the hope of catching lots of 
replies, maybe to get email addresses for a mailing list
or just for the fun of starting a flame war. 

For example, if I posted my real opinion of the  US 
conservative attitude to guns, abortion,  race, socialism
or the Bell Curve here, I would be trawling.  Sorry, trolling.
Not to mention breaking my  employers rules about 
using email for flames or political comment.

So I won't.  From this id at any rate :-)

The word is used in other contexts - for example 
in the British Civil Service an internal  job ad circulated to 
many offices is called a "trawl".

Ken