How do you deal with trolls?

DarthHazard Level 1

August 28, 2017, 7:50 am

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How do you deal with trolls?

Trolls are all over the internet and unfortunately, there is very little that can be done to stop them unless they actually do something illegal. So how do you deal with it if a troll starts to post on your forum? The thing is that if you do react and for example, ban them, they start to become happy because their whole aim to get a reaction from you. Therefore, is it a wise decision to just try to ignore them and let them do whatever they want as long as they don't post anything illegal or inappropriate? I came up a solution when I owned my last forum, although I never got the chance to try it out because there weren't any trolls on my forum. The solution was simple, anything that the troll posted would appear only to the troll. So they would think that people were seeing it and just ignoring it, except the reality was that the trolls post was not visible to anymore. Has anyone tried this strategy?

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Soulwatcher

Soulwatcher

That's a really good idea! What I do is activate the discourage feature on my forum. And it gives the troll all kinds of errors when they try to log into the website. And they usually give up after that.

Having said that you never know how far a troll will escalate things, I have seen them doss a forum and I have seen them make a million accounts through ip spoofing. And I have even seen them hack the website. So bottom line is its a good idea not to make someone so mad that they want to troll you.

7 years ago

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DarthHazard

DarthHazard

That's a good idea but how does the discourage feature actually work? Does it do it based on the IP address of the troll or based on their account? The only problem I see with this is that if they figure out the issue, they will try a different computer/location and may just create a whole heap of new accounts to troll even more on your forum. Definitely, if you make one of these people mad you just don't know what more they will do.

7 years ago

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Corzhens

Corzhens

Until now I cannot think of a reason why some people would create troll to ruin your forum. I can agree that they can do trolling for a while, say a week or two, but trolling a forum for a month is just a silly thing to do because they spend time for that. As I would always say, I have better things to do than to troll a forum. I know it is not easy to block trolls but that’s the best effort we can make.

6 years ago

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Tronia

Tronia

That is actually a really clever idea, haha. I haven't owned a forum before but I remember a few years back when I was a moderator on a well-known one, we had so many trolls there. It was really annoying because some members didn't realize that trolls simply want attention and they kept replying to their posts... Then the arguing began and so on.

What our admin did is just ban their IP range but then he also banned a bunch of other people. So that wasn't good.

I prefer your idea because it will drive the trolls mad

7 years ago

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TheArticulate

TheArticulate

I think that's a very effective strategy, actually. Reddit uses a similar feature called "shadowbanning", where if a user's content is reported enough, their comments will be posted, but only show up to them. Nobody else can see their posts online. I think this creates the illusion to them that they're still getting troll, but just aren't getting reactions after a while.

This may also play into the "don't feed the troll mentality" because as you said yourself, the trolls would be happy to be banned because they're just looking for a reaction from you. It's a tough subject though, because you can ignore them, but if their antics become more aggressive or dangerous to other user's experience, then you can't continue ignoring them and you'll have to take action against them in some way.

7 years ago

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JonathanS98

JonathanS98

Wow, I've never actually heard of Reddit's concept called "shadowbanning". Personally, I like the idea behind it and wish it could be implemented into other forums and blogs.

Regarding trolls, what I've come to notice is that the more attention you give them, the more it justifies their existence. SImply put, ignoring trolls is the best tactic I've found. Because usually, they become uninterested after a while a move on to their next victim.

7 years ago

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kgord

kgord

I only had one troll post on my site..he was actually someone I knew from another site who thought he was getting back at me for banning him from my content. I just ignored him. They are after a reaction good or bad, and ignoring them is usually the best thing you can do. Sometimes they escalate and another strategy may need to be employed but ignoring is good.

7 years ago

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JoeMilford

JoeMilford

kgord,
Good point here, and good points made here by all. Like all bullies, once you ignore them, it completely shuts down the pleasure they get out of trying to control or intimidate you, so that is a very effective way to neutralize such negative people. If you feed into their negative antics and taunts, you become a part of the problem yourself, and they just get off on it. Taking the high road, as they say, over these guys is definitely the way to go.

7 years ago

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Corzhens

Corzhens

That's a cute solution in dealing with trolls - making their posts invisible to the community and visible only to the troll himself, that will surely fool the troll so he will continue posting. I guess that's also a good solution for spammers so they will continue posting which is an addition to the content. Most of my friends who own a forum would find a way to ban the troll because they don't want to encourage trolling. One forum said that when you tolerate a troll for his nasty posting, other trolls will appear to join the fun. I don't know if that is true but that was based on their actual experience with trolls.

7 years ago

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augusta

augusta

I think that's the best strategy for trolls because getting angry will only make them continue in their troll,you just let them see what they post and it will get them furious.It can be quite annonying someone or some people keep posting rubbish on a forum,blog or even on one social media account.

7 years ago

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overcast

overcast

True. Getting angry and playing by their cards is not the good strategy. And in fact you can play by doing better with your own preference. That's what I have learned after moderating stuff for a lot of time. You can see that playing with trolls and their views is surely one bad thing. I personally think that trolls don't go much ahead in that case. Just ignore and move on sometimes that also helps.

7 years ago

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overcast

overcast

I think the best one can do is just let the trolls run their course. In some cases you can ban them. Most of the time though you may find that they are not adding any value. So you have to consider how they can be a good option in such case to use them for traffic. And if you can see that while dealing with the trolls, you just have to consider how you make decisions on removing their content. And also you may have to learn how to disagree or agree with them as well. You just have to make sure that the community learns from that experience.

7 years ago

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JoeMilford

JoeMilford

overcast,
I agree with you, yet again here. If you do not engage them, they will eventually run out of steam, and it is actually pretty funny to watch this happy. You kind of have to feel sorry for people who display this kind of behavior. It's totally ridiculous. I do think that, whenever possible, we should ban them. It's like kicking a guy who is incredibly and dangerously drunk out of the bar. However, if they can't be banned due to wherever they are trolling you at and the online options which you have there, then I say take the higher ground and ignore them.

7 years ago

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overcast

overcast

Yes that seems to be the case with the trolls and the people who are unhappy inside. You have to let them go through their stream. You can see that it is more likely to fix the issue of their anger. If they can get that part out then surely they won't be persisting on that. I think for each one of us it could be different though. So depending on how you wish to handle the person, trolls would react differently in either case.

7 years ago

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Authord

Authord

Trolling on the internet started on Usenet newsgroups back in the day, but now you see them everywhere—internet forums, blogs, YouTube, and even Twitter. The problem is now that in today's day and age, all of us are subject to trolling—not just those powerful enough to have their own blogs. This means that ignoring them becomes a lot more difficult, since you're far more emotionally invested in the things you do and say, and the trolls have that many more mediums to attack you. So the more you ignore them the better

7 years ago

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pizzalover

pizzalover

I didn't know about this strategy, I think it is really good. How did you know about this?. Is it really that effective?. How can I practice this strategy on my forum because I have lots of trolls and I don't know how to deal with them. I am newbie to blogging So, I will appreciate if you know another way to deal with this kind of problem, how to avoid and prevent it.

7 years ago

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Krisleen

Krisleen

In the business venture I am currently in, we are taught to develop a positive attitude while destroying negative thoughts when they first appear. I got used to ignoring negative people because of this so negative thoughts will not consume me. I really don't like involving myself with keyboard warriors and trolls. It's a waste of time to read their nonsense and rude posts because I don't learn anything from them so I just ignore them. Another option is to report them to the admin so they'll get banned. You got a good idea of just making their posts only visible to themselves so no one can read it. They just end up wasting their time with the posts that no one can read. No one will be provoked to put up a fight with them. Forums are intended to share valuable opinions anyway. I wonder if other forum owners do that. But thanks for sharing this idea. I will suggest this if ever I meet someone who will start putting up a forum site.

7 years ago

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cmoneyspinner

cmoneyspinner

LOL. What a neat trick!! Two thumbs up for thinking of that. ???? ????

7 years ago

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itommy

itommy

Deleting posts and remind members if they are trolling others.
I think it should be note in website or forum rules so we can avoid that on our sites.

7 years ago

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Jeane

Jeane

Trolls need to be kicked out of forums.

Ignoring them can work for a little while but since these people will try to annoy as many people as they can, there are forum users who'll respond to some of their posts which is exactly what the trolls want. Since their presence in the community is of little value, there is no need to have them around.

I noticed that some forums would suspend trolls for a few weeks and let them back in. Suspend them longer the second time and finally ban them altogether if they don't change. This strategy can be great too if you believe that everyone deserves a second chance.

6 years ago

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