Pointless status changes which don't improve our issue tracking but predictably upset people are definitely provocative in nature and therefore trolls, whatever the intention behind them (which is not my interest to investigate). I suspect there might be some linguistic issue here; "troll" is sometimes used to refer to a single post or act, in which case the judgement doesn't automatically extend to the author as an indication of a general pattern.
That said, it could be worthwhile to go beyond individual incidents and listen to people who express discomfort. There is a wide perception that WMF employees are the main source of frustration and exclusion of contributors in our technical community (probably for mere statistical reasons: they spend a lot of hours in them and cannot just walk away when their positive energies are exhausted, unlike volunteers). Unprofessional and unproductive behaviour can often be caused by stress or other problems at work, which everyone in WMF should help their colleagues to address. I have a feeling that WMF employees don't get the help they need to get better.
The victims are predictably the weakest contributors, mostly volunteers like User:Ruakh (Ran), who registered only one week ago. I hope Ruakh will be offered an apology for being caught in the crossfire.
Federico