How to Deal with an Internet Troll

in the year 2015, there were guides telling adults how to deal with other adults on the internet

Originally Posted by HiddenX
Humoristic anti-trolling is fun, too, but needs a lot of time, a silver tongue, a thick skin and of course you should never get angry at all.

Almost. Silver tongue is not necessary, the deduction of the weak spot and concentrating only on that is.

Originally Posted by DArtagnan
I don't know what you're talking about here. I'm talking about trolls. People who try to get a rise out of people - and who don't necessarily mean anything they say.

Declaring that you think they're not doing much harm and that they're fun in their own way is discouraging, not encouraging.

It's extremely basic psychology. They want to get a rise out of you - but instead, you deflate the situation and play along in a very limited way. That's frustrating and quite the opposite of what they're looking for.

It is indeed extremely basic psychology - when someone has a desperate need for attention, it does not matter to them what form that attention takes. Small children do this often - when they want attention, they will push something off the table. One strategy is to confront the behaviour, another is to ignore it. What you don’t do, is tell them it’s funny and that they’re welcome to carry on. The psychology of attention-seeking in older people is essentially the same.

You don't seem to understand the nature of a troll.

Telling them they're entertaining is discouraging, not encouraging.

This is nonsense. As I said, the nature of a troll is to attract attention through negative behaviour. If this attention is in the form of approval from fellow troll-enthusiasts, so much the better.

Your theory seems to be that they ONLY want negative attention, and that positive attention is a discouragement to them, like garlic to a vampire. This is not how it works. The combination of a reaction from their victim, and laughter from the crowd, is about the ultimate high for them.

Follow your logic through - if when he spouted that vicious abuse of Celtic’s children (for which Celtic has received a notable lack of sympathy, BTW) several of us had hit the the thumbs up button and posted, “Ha Ha! Good one!” you think he would have shrivelled and retreated? I don’t.

Take a look at his thread on the Codex that HiddenX linked us to. He has reposted the entire thing over there for the amusement of his friends. It’s not just about some special narrow definition of negative-only attention-seeking - it’s simply how people like him have fun.

EDIT: Take a look at this article, which covers the psychology quite well.

Third, trolling is a status-enhancing activity: by attracting readers’ attention, upsetting people, sparking heated debates, and even gaining approval from others, trolls can feel important, perhaps much more than they are in their real lives. Thus trolling is yet another internet activity that promotes narcissistic motives, since trolls may be expected to be far less successful in attracting people’s attention in the physical world.

Originally Posted by Sacred_Path
in the year 2015, there were guides telling adults how to deal with other adults on the internet

Boggles the mind. How do these people cope in real life?

Originally Posted by Sacred_Path
in the year 2015, there were guides telling adults how to deal with other adults on the internet

I don't really see what is peculiar about making suggestions on how other adults should deal with certain situations. IRL, there are ways of dealing with a disturbed person who is acting out, if you want to minimise any consequences, and prevent an escalation. The same applies online, even if the stakes are minor by comparison.

Well Penny Arcade's Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory is proved valid once again this month. Seems we all need to realize the moderating on this site won't change.

Save the children!

Unacceptable!

That is correct, moderation will not change much on this site. It uses the same reasoning as we had 9 years ago when we started. At that time we came from RPGDot. That wonderful place where moderation was indeed on a level as some people here want it to be. Because of that moderation it was changed into an empty place. Not much to do on the forums, not much happening either. There was the NFG forum that attracted some visitors, but that was about it.

We have rules in place, if they are broken, action is taken. Yes, that is correct, once they are broken, so after the fact. There are some here who want actions to be taken before the rules are broken, because their personal rules are broken or because they feel whatever happens does not fit their perception of this site or whatever other motivation. They feel Unrestigered should have been stopped before his final post because some people didn't like the contents of his posts, which were not really a violation of the rules. The titles were however, so those were modified.

Who else should we stop, who are not breaking the rules of this site yet, but might be or who you think is just not suitable for this site? There are several people on this site whom I don't like and would like to see gone. However as they are not breaking the rules they are still here. That's how it works.
The rules were made with a specific purpose for this site in mind, that purpose has not changed, so I see no reason to change the rules.

You don't have to agree with any of this, but also remember that your opinion is just that, your opinion. It is not the voice of the majority of RPGWatch as it is next to impossible to determine what each of the hundreds of individuals who are not posting in this case thread actually think.

In the meantime feel free to blame me for what happened as I put those rules up.

Let me make myself perfectly clear.

I never once asked for him to be banned. I feel bad that he thought so highly of himself that I was centering him out, I wasn't. The titles of his post just happened to be the ones that keep appearing on the main page when I posed the question do we need titles of threads like those here?

Personally I can't remember ever reading many if any of his post here as for the most part what he was saying was not that important to begin with to me.

It was the person in question that felt to take it personally and go of on some rant about a few of the people here and my family over a simple question about thread titles.

The after mass is what it is now.

Originally Posted by Myrthos
We have rules in place, if they are broken, action is taken. Yes, that is correct, once they are broken, so after the fact. There are some here who want actions to be taken before the rules are broken, because their personal rules are broken or because they feel whatever happens does not fit their perception of this site or whatever other motivation. They feel Unrestigered should have been stopped before his final post because some people didn't like the contents of his posts, which were not really a violation of the rules. The titles were however, so those were modified.

What I'm getting at is not about calling for the instant banning of people we don't personally like or approve of. HHR, for example, I disagree with bitterly, but I wouldn't denounce him as a troll, and I think it would be totally unfair to take moderator action against him. The same for several others, and I agree that they're part of the spice of the site.

But sometimes there are red flags that things are getting out of hand. This guy turns up one day, announces that he's just been banned from the Codex (which I think we all agree, probably takes some doing), starts ranting about the Gestapo, killing children, going into random threads and telling everyone they're freaks with Down's Syndrome, and so on. I don't think anyone actually took the bait and engaged with him, but several people pointed out how silly it was, or asked for someone to step in, and that was enough to provoke him to show his true (and obvious) colours.

I go back to the bar analogy I made before - if I saw a guy behaving in a certain way, and other guys getting out of their chairs, I didn't wait in amusement for the glass to start flying before I intervened. In this case, it might well have been to Roqua's own benefit to be given a few firm words earlier.

Of course it's only my opinion, but I do have some experience in dealing with disturbed personalities. Dealing with the psychology of a troll (and similar types) requires two tactics - don't give them what they want (attention of any kind), but also one must set firm boundaries to their behaviour. You can guarantee that they will keep testing the limits and raising the bar, and only by stepping in early can the inevitable be prevented.

Trust me, I did send Roqua some PM's about his behaviour before matters blew up. We can only warn and suggest until the rules are actually broken.

Disingenuous. If the only problem was the thread titles as has been claimed, why did the complaints continue after the thread titles had been moderated (and before Roqua's over-the-top invitation to be banned, which did, strangely enough, result in a fairly prompt ban)? Clearly, in spite of repeated angel-faced claims to the contrary, the indignation went beyond mere thread titles showing up in a small corner of the front page and protecting the children from horrible words. At least have the decency to step up and admit that the real problem is that things weren't moderated in the manner which you expected in the timeframe you expected it to happen. Further, the subsequent baiting of the site ownership over the issue belies the garbage claims of lamb-like innocence.

For that matter, I have yet to see any alternate solutions proposed. In particular, since we haven't quite perfected the whole Minority Report thing, I'm curious how the much aggrieved lambs would have done things differently and based on what criteria.

5

Don't have trolls on the staff.

Insults, but no answers. So who is the troll again?

Originally Posted by dteowner
Insults, but no answers. So who is the troll again?

I don't think you said anything that I haven't already addressed - or perhaps I couldn't make it out through the sneering?

Thread titles were not my concern, and I made it perfectly clear in my last post that, yes, I take a different view on how this should be handled. What is it you want me to answer?

Bear in mind that I'm conserving my strength for when Dart wakes up, because that is bound to be a long one.

Originally Posted by Ripper
Bear in mind that I'm conserving my strength for when Dart wakes up, because that is bound to be a long one.

LOL, I won't have much time in the am I have an early morning meeting. So you get your rest Ripper….

Originally Posted by dteowner
Insults, but no answers. So who is the troll again?

Have to say guys I am with DTE on this one …

Originally Posted by txa1265
Have to say guys I am with DTE on this one …

That I'm a troll?

I would say enough is enough of any of this.

I would seem I started the ball rolling on this, which I really didn't mean too. I really just had the site best interest in my thoughts when I first made the post.

We all know this is a great site, that is why we all come there and post over and over again. We all have a lot of different thoughts and idea's and for the most part there are no Trolls here.

Sure we all are most likely guilty of trolling(egging each other on) a bit to each other but it is the odd person that comes here regularly to cause nothing but trouble. Maybe that is why this got so heated, I don't know.

But I don't think snapping at each other is good idea and most likely best just to let all this slip into the dust……

Originally Posted by Ripper
I don't think you said anything that I haven't already addressed - or perhaps I couldn't make it out through the sneering?

Thread titles were not my concern, and I made it perfectly clear in my last post that, yes, I take a different view on how this should be handled. What is it you want me to answer?

Bear in mind that I'm conserving my strength for when Dart wakes up, because that is bound to be a long one.

You arrogantly assume that my post was directed at you. It was not. I would consider it appropriate to ask you similar questions since you seem to have joined the pitchfork-n-torch parade, but I don't see much coming of that since you tend to favor pretty sophistry over actual contribution. No worries, we'll let Celtic speak for himself should he choose to offer alternatives rather than faux-innocent bleats.