> When people who have no authority over the participants, I don't think it's exactly a matter of authority. A university wouldn't care about someone merely b

> When people who have no authority over the participants, I don't think it's exactly a matter of authority. A university wouldn't care about someone merely being a troll in Usenet; they'd have to be breaking a law or otherwise acting egregiously to attract disciplinary action. Instead, I think it's a matter of reputation. A smaller community is one where everyone is likely to be familiar with everyone else on an individual basis, and a community with a technical barrier to access imposes a transition cost on someone wanting to take their ball and go elsewhere. In my opinion, both of these things act together to change one's target audience and engagement style. In such small Usenet-style communities, a user is speaking to that community at large. In larger forums with less individual reputation and lower barriers to access, the forum instead becomes more of a performance place: people are speaking to a subset of like-minded supporters. Twitter is a great example of a very large forum with a near zero-barrier, where I can shout at an adversary while speaking to like-minded people.