(This is Anton editing Scott's post because I want the following to appear immediately under the question)

If you come across blatant troll posts, please do the following things:

1. Flag the post as offensive. If a post accumulates some number of offensive flags (I think 5), it is automatically deleted by the community user.
2. If somebody else has not already done so, leave a comment encouraging others to flag the post offensive, explaining that this will automatically delete the post.
3. Flag the post for moderator attention. If a moderator can get to the post quickly, he can take care of it. Also, if you flag the post, we can take appropriate action against the perpetrator.

As you said, you should not try to engage with the troll in any way.

(original post follows)

Please flag as "requires moderator attention". We'll get to them more quickly if they've been flagged -- I'm certainly not reading every post anymore, although I do read every title within about 12 hours of posting.

I'd encourage voting down trolls -- it's important that they don't accumulate enough reputation to comment, as this makes them harder to control.

In my experience, people who use the word "troll" to describe other people have probably been mis-enculturated somewhere along the line, so it's probably best for all people in the long run to leave that mis-culture behind.

@Jon: We're not talking about users who are merely irritating. Users who are unwittingly irritate others and contribute nothing valuable are "a nuisance", but users who post material whose primary intention is to be inflammatory are "trolls". The former should be dealt with gently and the later should be dealt with harshly.

@Jon: The blatantly inflammatory posts are usually deleted by moderators fairly quickly, so hopefully not many people have to see them, but they do happen. These users do not use a real name (not surprisingly), there are often multiple troll users coming from the same IP, and I suspect they are usually hiding behind an anonymous proxy. I assure you that under most circumstances, it is very easy to distinguish a troll from an honest user who happens to be annoying. In particular, we've never suspended a user using a real name.

I think the best thing to do is send the message, "the only response inflammatory content will get is to be flagged offensive and deleted". It's hard to imagine that anybody objecting to that.

If you want, you can also downvote troll posts, but I wouldn't bother. My personal policy on downvoting (which I hope is adopted by most of the MO community) is that if I downvote a post, I always leave a comment explaining why I did so and (if applicable) how the post can be improved, or if there is already such a comment which captures everything I'd like to say, I upvote it. That way, the user can do a better job next time. The author of a troll post obviously has no interest in doing a better job, so I don't bother trying to help.

Is it possible for non-moderators to be notified of flags? I couldn't see an obvious way to search for these. As Anton says, if a post gets 5 (ish) flags then it automatically gets deleted so those with a Sense of Civic Duty might want to keep an eye out - especially as the moderators are concentrated in the US.

Ah well, I was just trying to help. We're pretty good at dealing with trolls here in Norway.