Why are people on message boards so NASTY?

No, you're defining trolls inaccurately.

Please use the Quote feature so members can know to whom you are responding.

I guess I just dont have a much problem with trolls. I have been on sites and had trolls be very entertaining and if not I skipped over those posts. On the other hand I have had non trolls annoy me for various reasons. I have had more issues with non trolls. For example I was on a board that had trolls which were rather harmless at the time but they pissed off a long time member so he felt it was his place to get them all banned. He was trying to get everyone to report anything they posted, regardless if it was a troll post or should even be reported and would go off on people if they bothered to respond to any of their threads. I for one dont believe in reporting people and refused and wouldnt let anyone dictate who and what I will respond to. Because of this I started getting hate and drama on multiple sites from everyone for not falling in line. Which to this day I still defend their right to do because freedom of speech and all. It did however make me not what to deal with the drama because I really didnt care. I left not because people turned on me and 100% not because of trolls but because these were people I had nothing I wanted to say to and I wasnt getting any enjoyment from being there. 

I have been online since the mid 90s and never had to report anyone on any site, never had to block or ignore someone. I stay as long as I get enjoyment from something. As soon as I start to have more negative feelings about a person or place I walk away. It isnt up to anyone to change for me or a site to cater to me. If I am unhappy it is because I have a problem with something and I can either stick around and be unhappy or I can move on to something I find more enjoyable.

I have left many many sites over the yrs and it has always been because I either just got bored or I started having more negative feelings than positive. Never once has it been because of trolls and there have been trolls on every site I have been on. I often run into people I feel are a waste of space and only serve as contributing negative but that is my opinion. I dont get to dictate they cant be here. Regardless of how annoying I find someone they have just as much of a right to be here as I do. I am fairly certain every single person on here, myself included, annoys at least one person here. 

This is why the mod defined what a troll is and isn't. For the sake of being accurate consider redefining troll for yourself.

No, he didn't. Robert Bloch wrote the novel Psycho. But I like the catch. 

Imbecile. Psycho was written and directed by Alfred Hitchcock.

Sorry I meant the guy above you. Still not in the habit of using the quote feature lol.

Lol. It was meant as a joke anyway. I am aware Hitchcock didn't write the book.

Heaps of reasons which have been mentioned here already. Another huge factor is that the written word is easily misinterpreted at times due to no tone of voice or facial expressions (unless you use emoticons etc). I have seen people who agree with each other argue tooth and nail just because they are saying the same thing in a different way.

Also doesn't help when you have people calling someone names just because they disagree with what has been written.

I've also seen Mods and Admins create turmoil by being too extreme with rules and regulations. Sometimes chats go off the original topic a little and I have been on sites where that is a big no-no, making for a very sterile environment and can spark arguments just as easily as one like the original IMDb where people could say and do anything they wanted to.