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Thread: Advice on Dealing with Trolling

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    Chris's Avatar Senior Member
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    Advice on Dealing with Trolling

    Admin upon advice of mods has added the following to The Political Forums Revised Rules and Regulations under Guideline:

    Trolling reports will be considered only if you can point out violations of rules. Otherwise, the best advice for dealing with trolling is to simply ignore it.
    More generally mods have the following advice:

    We're a little society here, and societies ostracize those who don't belong. One way is by ignoring them.

    The initial reaction to a troll is anger, but that just feeds the troll. Over time, they're seen for what they are, made fun of, then paid less and less attention. When they're ignored--not fed, they'll go away. Newbies will fall for it, but catch on.

    Report them, but reports on trolling will be considered only if you can point out violations of rules. Mods trying to deal with them just feeds them, too, given attention, they'll troll you all more and more.

    It might be fun, sometimes, to make one dance, but that too just feeds them.

    So do nothing--ignore them, they'll get bored, and go elsewhere.

    Never wrestle with a pig. You get dirty and the pig enjoys it.
    Thank you, the Mods

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    There's quite a few members who hate the trolls, yet keep getting sucked into the mud dance. Not that it matters much, but I'm pretty much done here unless the bull$#@! ceases. I have less than zero interest in playing $#@!y little parlor games with $#@!s, and once I see others feeding the pigs I tune out.

    It may very well be that the forum experience in and of itself is not suited to my temperament. I sincerely have no tolerance left for flaming idiots, but I guess some people like the game.

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    The forum has a way of weeding out trouble. It takes time. Hang in there.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Larry Dickman View Post
    There's quite a few members who hate the trolls, yet keep getting sucked into the mud dance. Not that it matters much, but I'm pretty much done here unless the bull$#@! ceases. I have less than zero interest in playing $#@!y little parlor games with $#@!s, and once I see others feeding the pigs I tune out.

    It may very well be that the forum experience in and of itself is not suited to my temperament. I sincerely have no tolerance left for flaming idiots, but I guess some people like the game.
    OK then, what would you have us do?

    I've posed this question more than a few times and it's gone nowhere. So should Cigar be banned? Moderated? If we're going to be consistent, then everyone who posts an off-color remark on a thread is subject to moderation.

    So we can have it either way - not both ways. We can increase the moderation to the extent that only on-topic replies are acceptable and anything near the belt is actionable.

    Do you or anyone else want the latter? Be careful what you wish for.
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    Whatever rule you'd like to impose on one will be imposed on all alike. So as cap suggests, careful what you wish for.

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    I've been on several forums and it seems there are some trolls on all of them.

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    Quote Originally Posted by BooHoo View Post
    I've been on several forums and it seems there are some trolls on all of them.
    Exactly.

    Some forums deal with trolls harshly, while we would like to come up with a way to deal with them, we haven't found the recipe that would effectively deal with trolls without alienating virtually everyone else.

    A lot of this stuff is petty forum vendetta driven. We get a lot of complaints from people who quite frankly are guilty of committing the same fouls and on the chance that we deal with one of them, we're then accused of playing favorites or being inconsistent.

    So what to do.

    My personal belief is that if I am going to post something - anything, I don't want to have to sit here and think about who it's going to piss off or what action I'm going to have taken against me for voicing my opinion. I don't find that attractive in a forum and the goal is to keep the forum fairly lightly moderated.

    So... based on Chris's recommendation, the best option at this point is self control by members.

    We're all adults here I believe and ratcheting up controls will turn the place into a romper room fast.
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    Larry. What would you have them do. Put the trolls on ignore. Post topics that swing the other way, the normal way. Banning together might make them realize they'll get no bites. It's their goal to drive off conservatives and right leaning posters. It's the board they want to see destroyed. Time to dig in your heels.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Captain Obvious View Post
    OK then, what would you have us do?

    I've posed this question more than a few times and it's gone nowhere. So should Cigar be banned? Moderated? If we're going to be consistent, then everyone who posts an off-color remark on a thread is subject to moderation.

    So we can have it either way - not both ways. We can increase the moderation to the extent that only on-topic replies are acceptable and anything near the belt is actionable.

    Do you or anyone else want the latter? Be careful what you wish for.
    I have no problem with insults, off color remarks or general snark within the context of a thought that is at least relatively cohesive. If someone wants to call me names within a conversation, it doesn't mean $#@! to me. I have thick skin. What is beyond bull$#@! are members making twenty threads a day, answering a post with a stupid picture, or posting multiple times with half sentences of nothing but garbage.

    Do whatever you want to do, but if you guys really can't tell the difference between a troll and a wise guy, you aren't paying attention. And it has NOTHING to do with political leanings. I think Carygrant is a $#@!ing idiot, but he's no troll as far as I can tell. All I can say is it's gone beyond my ability to choose to deal with it, and that is my problem, not yours.
    Last edited by Larry Dickman; 10-31-2012 at 05:03 PM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Calypso Jones View Post
    Larry. What would you have them do. Put the trolls on ignore. Post topics that swing the other way, the normal way. Banning together might make them realize they'll get no bites.
    I don't get why people are feeding them. Why even respond to the $#@!s? Every time you do it's like telling a kid a hundred times, "you can't have that" until the kid screams loud enough and you hand over the treat.

    I really think for me personally this kind of conversation format doesn't work.

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