Trolls don't continue if you ignore them (for the most part). If they do it's easy to troll them back, provided your better at it. That usually ends them.
Spammers NEVER stop. They don't care. Trolls are like your one friend who messes around all the time but has no bad intentions. Spammers are those annoying kids who won't leave you alone.
As I have said, trolling in the truest sense does not have good intentions. It is the definition of malicious behavior; you have a misunderstanding on what the term applies to, which is probably the fault of how loose the term's come to be used.
Axle, the problem here is that while you've modded multiple forums some of us have no experience with that at all. We can't just delete it. Yes there is a report button but we don't have the control you mods have and mods may not always agree with a spam call.
You're assuming that I've moderated every forum I've been on? No; there are tons of sites and forums I go to where I have no position of authority whatsoever and it has never modified my stance in the slightest.
I'd say trolling > spamming. Trolling at least requires some intelligence and is often quite funny and entertaining whereas spamming is just mindlessly posting crap. Also, trolls aren't that bad if you know how to deal with them; spammers are just plain annoying and there really isn't any way to deal with them without the help of a mod.
Trolling is only ever entertaining when you're not on the receiving end or the person is willing to troll back; trolling is by definition harassment.
I'm going to say that spamming is far worse than trolling. I like trolling; even though it may be annoying it is tons of fun to do and is usually funny from the other side (as long as you can a joke). Spamming, on the other hand, is just obnoxious. It is never funny, and there is no one who doesn't get pissed when it happens.
Read what I said above; it's tons of fun to do because you're the one doing it. The only reason you could conceivably thing it's funny on the receiving side is if you're fond of trolling back or you've never actually gotten trolled. As for the second statement, I bolded: That's completely false. Plenty of people don't care because, as has been said,
it is mindless. Getting mad at someone who isn't thinking is a waste of thought, whereas someone who's intentionally doing what they're doing is a decent source of anger.
It also needs to be said that spamming
can be used as a method of trolling.
It's irritating at it's worst and anyone who reacts negatively to trolling is simply overreacting in my opinion.
Again, then you've never actually seen real trolling.
The truth of the matter is when trolling happens over the internet both parties, despite how angry or malicious their words may appear, are sat at their computer screens completely indifferent to what is actually happened (I believe there's actually a rage comic demonstrating this).
In some cases, sure. In all? Not even close. As evidenced by multiple statements in this thread (which you are even responding to), a lot of people take it seriously. A joke is only a joke when it's intended in good fun. If it's intended for everyone's enjoyment, it's not trolling.
Spamming on the other hand can be used much more maliciously than people are letting on. Entire websites have to be shut down at times due to server load caused by spam. That's real damage. Not people ragequitting a forum due to a few trolls.
...You do realize that if this kind of spam flood were ever intentional it would be trolling?