FullTimeWorker
Loves Spam
- Joined
- Dec 31, 2011
- Posts
- 49
A Forum Troll is a person who posts offensive and challenging messages to bait people to answer. Trolls delight in sowing discord on forums and are invariably anoymous posters, taking care to hide their identity or location. A troll is someone who purposely provokes and attempts to pull other posters into a flaming discussion. Flaming discussions usually end with name calling and a flame war.
A classic example is trying to make posters believe that he is a genuine sceptic with no hidden agenda. He is divisive and argumentative with a need-to-be-right attitude, allegedly "searching for the truth", flaming discussion, and sometimes insulting people or provoking posters to insult him.
A troll's tactic is to use the same words of their intended victim and to turn them against them. They are notoriously dog at a bone persistent and when their victim finally gets fed up with responding to a thread a troll will claim their victim has lost the argument; is unable to reply.
A troll is a person extremely sceptical of the main forum subject and focused on making other forum members appear stupid. A troll will sometimes use insults to provoke other people to insult him. Then, he will complain to moderators of being insulted and will request that his opponents get banned from further discussion.
Sometimes trolls try to spin conflicting information, is questioning in an insincere manner, flaming discussion, insulting people, turning people against each other, harassing forum members, ignoring warnings from forum moderators.
Trolling is a form of harassment that can take over a discussion. Well meaning defenders can create chaos by responding to trolls. The best response is to ignore it, or to report a message to a forum moderator. Moderators usually delete troll messages or block trolls. Negative emotions stirred up by trolls leak over into other discussions.
Normally affable people can become bitter after reading an angry interchange between a troll and his victims. This can poison previously friendly interactions between long-time users. Because of trolls many forums boast thousands of registered members but because of trolls few actually use forums; perhaps only one in a hundred registered users.
When trolls are ignored they step up their attacks, desperately seeking the attention they crave. Their messages become more and more foul, and they post ever more of them. Alternatively, they may protest that their right to free speech is being curtailed or their victim has lost the argument by not responding.
Perhaps the most difficult challenge for a webmaster is deciding whether to take steps against a troll that a few people find entertaining. Some trolls do have a creative spark and have chosen to squander it on being disruptive. Ultimately the webmaster has to decide if the troll actually cares about contributing positively to a forum, or is simply playing to an audience of one, himself.
Next time you are on a message board and you see a post by somebody whom you think is a troll, and you feel you must reply, simply write a follow-up message of two words: Troll Alert!
The only way to deal with trolls is to limit your reaction and not to respond to trolling messages. It is well known that most people don't read messages that nobody responds to. 99% of forum visitors first read the longest and the largest threads with the most answers.
A classic example is trying to make posters believe that he is a genuine sceptic with no hidden agenda. He is divisive and argumentative with a need-to-be-right attitude, allegedly "searching for the truth", flaming discussion, and sometimes insulting people or provoking posters to insult him.
A troll's tactic is to use the same words of their intended victim and to turn them against them. They are notoriously dog at a bone persistent and when their victim finally gets fed up with responding to a thread a troll will claim their victim has lost the argument; is unable to reply.
A troll is a person extremely sceptical of the main forum subject and focused on making other forum members appear stupid. A troll will sometimes use insults to provoke other people to insult him. Then, he will complain to moderators of being insulted and will request that his opponents get banned from further discussion.
Sometimes trolls try to spin conflicting information, is questioning in an insincere manner, flaming discussion, insulting people, turning people against each other, harassing forum members, ignoring warnings from forum moderators.
Trolling is a form of harassment that can take over a discussion. Well meaning defenders can create chaos by responding to trolls. The best response is to ignore it, or to report a message to a forum moderator. Moderators usually delete troll messages or block trolls. Negative emotions stirred up by trolls leak over into other discussions.
Normally affable people can become bitter after reading an angry interchange between a troll and his victims. This can poison previously friendly interactions between long-time users. Because of trolls many forums boast thousands of registered members but because of trolls few actually use forums; perhaps only one in a hundred registered users.
When trolls are ignored they step up their attacks, desperately seeking the attention they crave. Their messages become more and more foul, and they post ever more of them. Alternatively, they may protest that their right to free speech is being curtailed or their victim has lost the argument by not responding.
Perhaps the most difficult challenge for a webmaster is deciding whether to take steps against a troll that a few people find entertaining. Some trolls do have a creative spark and have chosen to squander it on being disruptive. Ultimately the webmaster has to decide if the troll actually cares about contributing positively to a forum, or is simply playing to an audience of one, himself.
Next time you are on a message board and you see a post by somebody whom you think is a troll, and you feel you must reply, simply write a follow-up message of two words: Troll Alert!
The only way to deal with trolls is to limit your reaction and not to respond to trolling messages. It is well known that most people don't read messages that nobody responds to. 99% of forum visitors first read the longest and the largest threads with the most answers.
