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When someone begins to act like a troll then you put their account on probation and anything they post gets held until it is reviewed by a forum moderator for appropriateness/ accuracy. If it is wrong or trollish it gets rejected or kicked back to the poster for revision.
Since this can become burdensome in the long run it is actually one step out the door. If the troll keeps posting things while on probation that require the post to be kicked back for revision or rejected they are warned that their site access is in jeopardy of being eliminated (three strikes and you are out).
Real trolls are mentally defective; they cannot play nice with others in the long term. Usually this process may only last a week or two and usually results in them being banned.
This is arguably the best approach. The balance of the site users - in particular, paying subscribers - should not have to suffer derailed and locked threads which are the work of maladjusted, self-proclaimed trolls.
Yes, those proclamations exist in cyberspace. The Eham threads in question may have been deleted (I haven't searched for them recently) but sites like Archive.org don't forget.
I've managed a number of hobby-related forums over the years. Dealing with someone whose stated objective is to troll or disrupt the forum isn't rocket science - nor is it a stretch to deal with subsequent sock accounts they create when their primary username is banned.
