> In other words, it's often your outspoken (and sometime inappropriate) members that are driving the most interesting discussion.
I disagree. I'll admit that I haven't done any kind of exhaustive analysis, but every now and then I'll click on the profile of an obvious troll on HN or Reddit. 9/10 times they are consistently trolling and contributing nothing to the community.
Sure, but I think what ckozlowski was saying is that even though these particular users may have no value in themselves and their (lack of) discourse, they bring attention of other well-mannered users that then get into intelligent discourse.
Trolls are a bit like political extremists: if they weren't here, you wouldn't talk about the ugly stuff so much and make sure it's kept in check.
Not quite disagreeing with you, but I think in this case there's a difference between your trolls and the "argumentative/easy to be offended" types. The latter are what I'm referring to.
I disagree. I'll admit that I haven't done any kind of exhaustive analysis, but every now and then I'll click on the profile of an obvious troll on HN or Reddit. 9/10 times they are consistently trolling and contributing nothing to the community.