Once apon a time, there was a lovely community we’ll call Cecilville. The citizens of Cecilville were an intelligent people, fond of long discussions over back fences about all kinds of wonderful topics. Some times they would gather together and have parties. They were a merry bunch.
But they had a problem.
Outside of Cecilville there lived a gang of creatures. These creatures would occasionaly wander into Cecilville and do all manner of nasty things. They would take on the faces of normal citizens untill everyone was at ease with them. Then, all of the sudden, they would pounce with vile words and twisted logic and evil thoughts, and thus wreck havoc on the peace of Cecilville. Sometimes the creatures wouldn’t even sneak in, but would begin their assault as soon as they were within the gates of the city. These creatures fed off of the loathing and anger that the citizens held for them. It nourished them, and helped them multiply. The beasts loved it.
Throughout the city, there were great cries of anguish. “Oh how do we stop this assault?”, the Cecillions cried. “Why do these beasts torment us so?!” But sadly they already knew the answer.
And yet they kept on feeding the damned things.
If they had only ignored them, pretended they didn’t exist, and denied the beasts the attention they needed, soon the beasts would have left them. But sadly this was never to be. For there were those among the Cecillians who relished the havoc almost as much as these vile creatures did, and had as much fun feeding them as the beasts had in being fed.
In the 20 some years I’ve been online (including BBS’s and other), I’ve never once seen a Troll starved to death. At best you get wars where “DNFTT” people go after the “Mock 'em until they go away” types. And since there’s always going to be newbies who don’t know not to FTT and DO FTT, the the always going to get their minimum daily requirement of outrage.
What we CAN do is to mock them. Outrage/anger/hysteria is what they’re looking for, IMHO and so they say outrageous, offensive things. What they can’t stand (again, IMO) is to be laughed at. Plus the mocking A) doesn’t leave the outrageous post just hanging out there unchallanged, so B) Newbies are given a clue on how to respond to the OP in a way OTHER than outrage.
I’ve actually seen the “mock them 'till they go away” method work on the Usenet and here.
I disagree Fenris (And kudos particlewill. This kind of thing has been bugging me for a while now.)
Why wouldn’t ignoring the people be better than taunting them, laughing at them, or otherwise trying to humiliate them?
I’ve never understood the motivation of a troll posting the stuff they do, but then again, I’ve never understood the motivation for everyone and their brother coming into a thread like that and saying, 'Go away asshat, you bother me (Tee hee! I made a funny! Asshat! You guys think I’m funny? Tell me now!).
I think we’re all smart enough to see an obvious troll post, and oftentimes a troll poster for who there are, but it seems that people trip all over themselves trying to a) Point out to people that it’s a troll (Really?) and b) Trying to outdo each other with clever insults (Me so funny!) and, finally, ironically enough, c) bumping the questionable thread and telling people to ignore it (Huh?).
I sometimes think the responses to these threads are far worse than the threads themselves. If you ignore it, it goes away. But by commenting on it, in any form, you’ve given the troll what they want, a response and a second in the lime-light (Such as it is).
But what if no one at all responded. What if they were met with a wall of silence?
I know it wouldn’t work. All I am saying is, it really takes two, (or more) to troll. And it seems to me that the feeders get as much out of it as the feedees do. Besides, in at least one of the links I gave, the beastie in question GOT his anger/outrage/hysteria. I mean Esprix claimed that several people were on the verge of behavior for which banning might occur as a response to the thing. It is more of THAT which I am talking about. I think the mocking is great. It just seems to me that if a poster OP’s a thread that raises that much ire, then perhaps it would be best NOT to give in and become outraged.
I dunno. sigh I guess it’s just frustrating to see people I regard as intelligent and well spoken be driven to such extremes.
Chris, we’ve disagreed on this before so no change on either of our parts, I guess.
I’ll stand by the fact that ignoring never works. I can show you cases where trolls left in a huff after being mocked (it may have taken them two or three tries, but…). Show me one single thread where a Troll was ignored and went away (you’ll need to show both parts) and I’ll reconsider.
It’s against human nature to ignore a troll. And I think it’s a bad idea to let a troll’s outrageous statements just sit, unchallenged. Silence implies agreement.
There are trolls out of which one can get a certain degree of entertainment. There are other trolls who operate only to annoy, to accuse the staff of unfairness, to make things miserable for the members (has anyone here ever has any dealings with Baltimore bridge-croucher Helen Flinders?) and to make a board a nasty place to be.
On a board where I have admin responsibilities (I can hear you laughing), we always followed the mocking route, combined with a few slaps, but generally ignoring the point that the troll was trying to make. It worked, and still works, with everyone except the really dedicated trolls who seek to stir up shit about the way a board is run. They get their jollies not from hearing everyone call them a dumbshit, or from having their arguments flames, but from hearing arguments between proponents of strong moderation, and proponents of laissez-faire.
By restraining the urge to call the troll whatever and beyond, what motivation have you given them to continue doing it? None that I can think of.
But by swarming into the thread and tripping all over each other trying to come up with new names to call said troll, you’ve given them something. Maybe not necessarily what they wanted, but a response none the less. You’re still feeding them.
Has there ever been a case where a troll has gone away because people ignored them? If there has been, it doesn’t come to mind (It’s also possible one can’t be found because it’s never happened here).
This also leads me to the second problem I have with humiliating technique. How can you be certain that some of these slam-fests, mis-direction posting, or whatever it’s called, hasn’t drown out a legitimate post or poster?
If you could guarantee that, then maybe I wouldn’t have such a reaction whenever I see it happen (Ahh, who am I kidding. I’ll always have the reaction that responding to trolls and troll posts are stupid).
Fenris, I have been on the net in some form or another for almost as long as you have. I would suggest that ignoring hasn’t been shown to work because it never successfuly happens. Someone always responds at some point. I mean do you really think these guys would hang around if all of their posts were met with zero response?
perhaps another analogy is in order. Lets say you have a mother and her kid in a toy store. Kid wants Action Guy toy. He begins to scream and shout and act up. Now, mom can react in a few ways.
A. She can buy the Action Guy toy for the kid to shut him up. The kid then learns that acting up has rewards, and will continue this tactic.
B. She can beat him. Not really a good option for any number of reasons.
C. She can ignore the kid, not buy him the toy, and remove him from the store.
A. is the same as giving the troll what they want.
B. is the same as Mocking and ridiculing it.
C. is what I have gathered the Mods would prefer in dealing with them.
particle, regardless of one’s philosophy about trolls, would you have preferred someone lose their cool in GD and get banned? Sometimes we just need an outlet to vent, and GD isn’t the place to do it.
Personally I think the BEST way to deflate a troll is, once they are determined to be trolls, change ALL their posts to read, “[This post removed due to ashollery]”. THAT would piss 'em off.
Goodness no Esprix. I would prefer that no one lost their cool at all. If a poster has such an effect on you that you must rant and rave at what an idiot they are, then perhaps a step back is in order. I mean, look at what happened to poor Cartooniverse. If he had just taken a few moments to realize that this is a message board, and not a personal vendetta against his religion, pehaps he wouldn’t have had the meltdown and subsequent self removal from the Pit.
Perhaps I was out of line for saying something, but it has been bugging me lately.
As fond as I am of the DNFTT philosophy, I don’t think it will ever work in practice simple because it would require everyone to ignore the Trolls. Trying to get any online group to act in concert is like trying to get cats to do syncronized water ballet.
Yes, ignoring would work if everyone did so. Similarly, there’d be no more violence in the real world if everyone in the world just stopped ever being violent. Also, there’d be no anger or hurt feelings if everyone just stopped ever being angry or let their feeings get hurt.
If we had some ham, we could have some ham and eggs…if we had some eggs.
Let Ralph Wiggum show you the way to fight trolls! In other words, I agree with Fenris. Ignoring the creatures just eggs them on to ever more outrageous behavior, as does getting into flame wars. Moreover, I have a personal aversion to letting smelly cow flop posts just sit and fester on the floor–they get the electrons all smelly and it is just MURDER cleaning out the CRT with Windex.
Nope, I gotta go with the mocking and the laughing and letting the silly creatures know just how inane they look–not scary, not annoying, just foolish, stupid, and pathetic.
Look. I am not asking for world peace here. All I am saying is, that to react to a troll to the point that you might be BANNED is to over react, and that perhaps realizing that the trolls inflamatory posting is JUST THAT would be beneficial.
I would love a Mod tocome in here with an opinion…
I don’t think your analogy quite works since it’s only one mother and one child.
I think a better analogy would be the (in)famous “pure communist” or “pure libertarian” arguement: “Well, it would work if there was a fundamental change in human nature such that everyone was either self-sacrificing or responsible.”
The problem is that it only takes one person to upset the whole system. If even one person responds to trollery, the “DNFTT” policy fails (that includes warnings not to FTT.), IMO.
Given that (again IMO) DNFTT never works, I strongly abandon giving it up as a policy. Therefore, I think that mockery followed by the mods closing the thread is the best route.
I expressed these sentiments when whatshisname? Willie? was trolling. He was an anti-semite and that’s one of my hot-button issues. Rather than get upset and feed him or (equally bad) let his anti-semitic lies just sit there (not that it was likely that they would in this crowd of rugged individualists ), he was mocked repeatedly. I felt better and his posts got wilder and wilder as he tried to get someone to get outraged (I think his last one was that he was, in fact, a Jew :rolleyes: ). Mocking worked where (IMO) nothing else would have.
Ok Fenris, I will give it to you that the mocking is an effective tool. In fact I would like to subscribe to your mocking newsletter. From what I have seen, you are a prince of satire. (This is heartfelt, not sarcasm.)
I guess what bugged me more was the apparent overreaction I have been seeing, in taking the trolls seriously and personaly.
On a completely unrelated note, can anyone recommend a good freeware spellchecker? Ye gods, I can’t even stand to read my own writing some days.
), he was mocked repeatedly. I felt better and his posts got wilder and wilder as he tried to get someone to get outraged (I think his last one was that he was, in fact, a Jew :rolleyes: ). Mocking worked where (IMO) nothing else would have.