Slashdot Mirror
How To Deal With Internet Bullies?
creyes123 writes "I run a free website with an online model airplane design calculator. The number of registered users has quickly climbed and I've gotten many compliments. Out of nowhere, a fellow shows up and proceeds to bad mouth the calculator in a posting in one of my forums. After I politely point out that he's mistaken and should have looked at the documentation before posting, he changes the subject and bad mouths a different 'flaw.' The cycle repeats a few more times, with no apparent end in sight. I want to encourage folks to share their opinions, but constructive criticism was clearly not his goal. I feel that the whole episode was just a massive time waster for me. What did I do to deserve this? Could I have handled this better?"
When you realize you're in a pointless and prolonged exchange with a time waster, bully, etc., get off the ride. "Thanks for your feedback. I'll keep it in mind as I plan future improvements."
- Greg
Start a happiness pandemic
Ban his IP
Use your head, can't you, use your head,
You're on earth, there's no cure for that - S. Beckett
If they're just out to troll then ban them and be done with it.
A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
generally teh best responses!
Your best bet is to just relax. Remember, when you argue with an idiot on the internet, two idiots are arguing.
ban, done. you really needed to ask slashdot about this nonsense?
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19/
Yes, some people are mean on the internet, that's what IP-bans are for. No, you can't talk them into being nice, you slap an IP-ban on them, delete their posts, and forget about them.
Winning an argument on the Internet is really hard, because people can trump you with their dickhead status or their real status. If you're trying to form a logical argument, they can make something that sounds cool and is easier to register, and people will accept it. Sometimes they just claim the argument is over, after they make a (flawed) point, leaving you unable to counter their blatant insulting of your intelligence (which usually paints you as wrong even if you're arguing over whether or not 2+2 = 7).
It's stupid.
Support my political activism on Patreon.
I don't know, I've had to deal with people like that but never anyone that violent or aggressive...I mean criticizing a calculator? Why hasn't someone locked him up already?
Killfile him. Ban him. Ban his IP. There's many options available for that. Use them.
"Bullies"? Just IP ban him, you idiot.
I didn't read every word of the post, it just seemed like the guy was expecting absolute accuracy from something that was never intended to be that way. I didn't at all take it as an 'internet bully'.
Did he threaten to come to your house and beat you up if you didn't fix it? Maybe that was in the part I skimmed over.
Banning their IP or username will probably be seen as an act of aggression, and if they are really intent on trolling your forums, they will find a means to do it. Really, the best way to deal with a person like this is to just ignore them... they won't find any entertainment if there's no reciprocation. Move their post off into a dusty corner of the forums if you can (make it the last to show up in searches, for example) and forget about it. There's one in every crowd =(
What you do is you take their comments, and edit them, to make them say exactly the opposite of what they are saying. So, if they say
Rob Sucks!
You can edit it to say
Rob did a great job.
Or something like that. It's really frustrating for trolls to find that their comments become benign.
Or, just ignore them. That works too!
Finally, what some people do is a little tricky. You ban their IPs, so that nobody *but them* can see their post. They think they are posting some vicious flames, and it shows up when they view the site, but nobody else (not even you, if you want) see it.
I love Mondays. On a Monday, anything is possible.
I'd try to set up the forum so he is the only one who can see his posts so he thinks his messages are getting through and everybody else is ignoring him.
...nicely(~50KB jpg).
I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and besides, the pig likes it.
--George Bernard Shaw
The Mothership
There were these things called "punt strings". Basically, America Online's instant messaging client did not properly parse HTML. With a properly crafted chain of h1's, br's, etc... You could cause a DOS attack with a simple message.
Or, if you were a real bastard, you could "TOS" someone, i.e. send a properly crafted complaint mail to the Terms of Service general with a complaint about the person. Added points for pasting a fake IM log. You could get their parents banned from their ISP. Good times.
Pointing out that you can't just ban some twat and be done with it, but will give him entire Slashdot articles worth of attention is the best way.
After this makes him a professional troll worthy of charging consulting rates*, he'll join the GNAA and leave you alone once he heads to the big leagues.
* I was going to say "consulting rates for douchebaggery" but that's entirely redundant, as anyone who has met Highly Paid Consultants knows.
I've been on bulletin boards, mailing list since the 80's and usenet since the 90's, and I've found that the best strategy is to give them a private warning and then ban them if they keep up the bad behavior. Anything else just prolongs the inevitable, wastes your time, and drives away contributing posters.
How would you handle schoolyard bullies? You're bound to run into people who are just flat-out trolls. Since you appear to be in a position of authority, make use of it. Perhaps penalize people who are insulting you or your efforts in a manner that is not constructive criticism. I wouldn't suggest going all ban happy on everyone who says stuff that makes you or your efforts look bad. Really, its about trying to tell the trolls from the people who are simply trying to point out weaknesses or faults that may need improvement. Exercise your judgment carefully, and remember power corrupts.
That thread is really tame. You have an incredibly tiny forum with very few threads, and the first critical comments in a short 12-post thread send you running to Slashdot for help? Wow. Go over and read some forums with a lot more posts and grow a thicker skin. Seriously.
someone post the articles please
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
That was a bad idea posting the url to your site. It is already down from being slashdot'd.
Here is my advise..
Delete them.
The community I help to run, is packed of lots of wealthy people, alpha males type... and everybody thinks that is right, and many have the money to purchase the true...
Just erase them.
Simple as that.
Â_Â
Model airplanes! I'm so there! Prepare to be Slashdotted, flyboy!
use a shared server and watch as your site is blown off the internetz. problem solved.
Nah, he will probably come back using proxy's.
Instead use some scripting to make his posts invisible to everybody, but himself (only someone visiting from his IP gets to see his posts/comments). He will think he is successfully posting his trolls, but nobody else sees them.
It's like a usenet flame-war, or a telemarketer. If you continue to respond, it only encourages them to continue the exchange.
Give them one polite response, maybe two if you're feeling generous. After that, ignore their posts. Deny them the satisfaction of harassing you. If their posts continue or worsen, expel them from the forum. It's your site, and you set and enforce the acceptable use policy for your forum. If you don't have an AUP posted for your site (I can't tell; you just slashdotted your own site!) then the first step is obvious.
The problem with a 3 strikes rule, is that it does not differentiate between 3 strikes in 2 days and 3 strikes in 50 years.
Take a guess as to how often you can allow someone to lose it. I would guess once a year is probably a place to start. So, we might then say that assigning a "half-life" to the incident of 6 months would be fair. Any time an incident happens, we start keeping track of this exponentially decaying strike. If we had 1 strike at day 0, one at 6 months, and one at 1 year; the first strike has decayed to 1/4 and the second to 1/2. So the "score" at the time of the third strike is 1.75. Another strike at 1.5 years would see the total: 0.125+0.25+0.5+1. At this rate, it would take a long time to attain a score of 3. If this works with your group, keep it. If people are getting out of line too much, obviously the half life is too short.
"Could I have handled this better?"
If you take a moment to consider that by linking your site in the question here has caused it to breal its bandwidth/cpu quota; Yes you could have!
On the other hand, there's no such thing as bad press; so 'they' say!
My personal perspective ? To quote some wise person: "On the Internet, opinions are like Assholes. Everyones got one and they all stink."
In other words, you will never please all of the people all of the time, but perhaps you can derive some satisfaction in considering that your site has made enough of an impact for this person to actually care enough to be so vociferous ...
You could have handled it better by not being a pussy and whining to Slashdot about what to do!!! Now fix the damned stall function it's broken all to hell!
Um, oh, sorry, wrong site.
The above is intended as humor and not as actual bullying. Carry on.
1) Running a free website. Being bullied by trolls.
2) Posting to AskSlashdot for solution.
3) ???
4) Profit!
Colorless green Cthulhu waits dreaming furiously.
"What did I do to deserve this? Could I have handled this better?"
Grow a pair and ban his IP address. -Chemgeek
Every few months I have a nasty enough experience on irc to send me elsewhere for amusement for a while.
A couple of weeks ago I bumped into a very unpleasant individual on #erlang. Only a few days afterwards the generally abrasive op-clique on #mysql made one too many unnecessarily-rude remarks in my direction, and I decided to get my kicks elsewhere for a while. It's the channel's loss, as I enjoyed helping people there - often while nobody else was around to help.
Generally the sociopaths on irc (or anywhere, really) are Americans. There's some kind of fundamental social training y'all are not getting down there. Until you learn to socialise in a healthy way - I'll avoid you as necessary. HAND.
you had me at #!
Have the said bully "Meet my little friend" (see Scar Face)
You've been more than patient with him as he's vented his spleen. You've given him a hearing. He's become abusive. He's a troll, so twit him. It's your site.
"Here's what's happening. You're starting to drive like your Dad..." - Red Green
So, you're telling him to feed the troll? Let the troll know that he's getting to you, and he'll just do it more.
If you run the forum, the best solution is to ban him, and ban him with every new account he makes.
Not a Twitter sockpuppet... but I wish I was.
Or just ban the douche. Its your call Lynn Doyle
So many injustices..so little time..
If there are people you like, grant them mod privledges and let them delete the goofball's posts. If there aren't, and you don't have time to control the forum yourself, then your community isn't viable.
A little known fact, there actually _is_ an organization of paid and salaried environ-mentalists determined to
inconvenience the aviation industry wherever they can: http://planestupid.com/
i like airplanes, they are pretty like sunshine sparkling on a dewdrop
1) Go on No Mutants Allowed forums
2) Say why Fallout 3 looks enjoyable to you
3) Enjoy the frothing nerd rage
The user the site owner is complaining about is the top non-admin poster... with only five posts.
Sorry. When you open up a fourm, you have to have a thicker skin than wanting to get rid of poster who comes up critical. Next thing you know, we'll be seeing a Your Rights Online post from the user you want to ban.
You setup a website with forums for user comments. Haven't you learned anything from reading /.?
Sig this!
I read the thread and it sounds to me like the fellow is just wanting highly accurate results from your software.
In any event I'd suggest, with all due respect, that this may just be a case of being pissed off at the guy. He's written about what he perceives as flaws in the software you wrote; he's calling your baby ugly.
Trolling is a art,
When I ran a forum I had a few simple rules.
If you are an asshole, you will get banned.
I define who is an asshole.
It varies depending on my mood.
Yes, I am an asshole.
My server, my rules.
-- Will program for bandwidth
Don't feed the trolls, it only encourages them. Don't know who to give credit for that originally but it always holds true. Don't look at them or even acknowledge their presence, if they find out their life draining speech is worthless they move on. If anyone succeeds at doing this, let me know...
...in bed
What did I do to deserve this?
Deserve's got nothing to do with it.
--I'm not talking about dance lessons. I'm talking about putting a brick through the other guy's windshield.-
Never attribute to malice what can be explained by stupidity. Don't assign to stupidity what might be due to ignorance. The dude's questions don't seem unreasonable, and you keep posting encouraging comments like "this is good stuff" and "these really give me great ideas" so of course he's going to continue providing feedback. He's probably thinking he's doing you a great service and he's the best forum poster in the whole world.
He's more coherent than 90% of the clients I've ever dealt with, and was willing to admit where he was wrong in some points. From my outlook, this man is a model poster and what you should really be encouraging in your community rather than freezing like a deer in headlights. Communities absolutely thrive on the [conceived] ability to alter the outcome of the product that has brought them together. Machiavelli wrote a book on just this type of thing.
If you need him to temper down his comments, simply remind him that you're a small shop and appreciate his patience as much as his input. Tell him that you don't check the board as often as you check your emails, and you would appreciate it if he were to continue this thread via email with you -- like telling someone to bypass your secretary with a direct line, it can be very flattering.
I am the richest astronaut ever to win the superbowl.
How about that beehive, kick it, them bees wont get ya.
All in all, I think it is fun to toy with the anger mongers...fun for me, AND I get to let off my own steam ;)
CS: It is all sink or swim...oh and did I mention there are sharks in that water?
Then consider yourself lucky! Most forums i've been on end up in the "Troll" bad mouthing everyone and anyone's parentage within 100 miles of the forum hosts location! Just remember Trolls get off on creating discord (one hand typers!!). Answer their questions within the realms of possibility then ban their ASS when they start bad mouthing people. Simple.. :D
Also move their posts in a private forum for a select few to laugh at :D:D
Laters Sol "Have you found the secrets of the universe? Asked Zebade "I'm sure I left them here somewhere"
My personal advice is to just sit by and allow him to do it. Reply to one of his post (probably his most recent) and explain your side of the story but let him know you're not going to waste time with his endless tirade of complaints. Let him know that, if he wants help, email your support team privately and you'll try to resolve his problem but you're done with him publicly.
By allowing him to continue to post unhindered, your other visitors will see through his crap and it won't have any power and, eventually, when he realizes he isn't getting your ire up like he wants, he's going to either go away or bring up a legitimate concern.
You're also going to demonstrate to your visitors that you're open to criticism and don't try to stifle your critics. It's a win-win situation.
Good luck!
Anthony Papillion
Advanced Data Concepts, Inc.
"Quality Custom Software and IT Services"
http://www.luclin.org/files/jamond/Retarded.jpg
Clicking through the forums, there appear to be a total of 31 posts in the entirety of the forums (unless registered can see more forums or some such).
It appears that the subject of the thread that is linked to in the story is an unstructured series of bug reports and technical commentary about cases not considered by the software, and suggestions for improvement. The instances where the alleged bully deviates from the topic at hand, the comments regard the forum software in use, and after the first response, the alleged bully withdraws his complaint to return to a discussion about the technical merits of the software.
As a scientist (but not an aviation engineer), the comments, questions, and responses between the allegedly bully and the software author appear to be about technical aspects of the software, and there appears to be a mutual understanding and agreement about issues that got fixed.
The discussion appears to be professional, with the occasional attempt at absurd humour thrown in.
Am I missing something here? Is this story an attempt to generate hits for an otherwise non-notable website for a niche app?
There are 1.1... kinds of people.
Despite some people's half-baked concepts of "Freedom of Speech" you are not obliged to let anyone post anything that you don't like.
It's your site, not his. If he feels moved to flame your work he can go start his own site and do it there.
Delete him, delete his posts, and if he comes back delete him again. He'll give up fast enough.
Three Squirrels
It's really simple, ignore the poster. Others will/do see it for what it is. Some folks have made it their personal goal to ensure that everyone is more unhappy then themselves. If it's irrelevant then ignore it.
Ban his IP. Or the entire subnet belonging to his ISP. Or the whole country of his. Heck, you can ban everybody altogether! Now that would be one hell of a preemptive strike.
I do realize dude is a total fuckwad, but having been in software development for a lot of years, I find that 9 out of 10 times I feel like blowing someone off for being that way or banning them, I'm better off actually listening to what they are saying, because if one person thinks a thing, many more do, too.
Ideally, software should not need documentation. So, while your criticism of his criticism is perfectly valid, you don't seem willing to accept the possibility that your application could use some user interface improvement.
Just saying.
Check out my game. Tell me what you really think--plenty of people have, and in the end even the assholes I value for their honest criticism, since they are not my friends or family and they feel VERY free to say what they really think.
expandfairuse.org
What did I do to deserve this? Could I have handled this better?
If your forum users are getting annoyed, then a single big notice "Please don't feed the troll." usually works wonders.
( The antique unix 'banner' utility program is useful to generate the notice. )
See this 55 minute Google Talk on how to survive these horrible individuals. Although this video is about PPs in a free software setting, the principles are the same for your forum.
However, dicks stand out in a crowd, and it's obvious when a repeat offender comes back. Simply rinse and repeat. Few clicks, done.
Many forums have the ability for a moderator to put someone on universal ignore.
This is advantageous to a traditional banning because the troll does not immediately know they need to re-register under a different username.
You'll never be able to get people to ignore a troll any other way.
When you're having a disagreement, it's always important to spend some time trying to understand the opponent's point of view - see things the way they're seeing it. Just make sure you're avoiding the antiprocess, where both sides of the argument keep thinking "he just doesn't get it!"
See Tim Campbell's Introduction to Antiprocess for more details - I highly recommend this guide.
Geek and troll duke it out over some damn model airplane calculator.
Upset geek generates Slashdot story, asking about how to handle this.
Good grief.
well, is he right ?
Maybe he wants to get involved with the site, some people are brilliant engineers but lack social finesse.
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
Looks like your poster was argumentative, but not really rude (IMHO). People like that can start of being a pain, but sometimes you can channel their passion/energy into helping you to improve your product/web site. Why not invite them to help test revisions or another version, or to improve on the algorithms.
I used to work with a guy who just liked to argue. Didn't matter about what, it was just a game of wits and he was annoyingly good at it and pretty bright to boot. (Ben G. in Australia, if you read /. I'm talking about you :)
Sometimes they help, sometimes they go away, and sometimes they're really trolls.
One cute trick i've seen used on abusive commenter/posters is to apply a script to their posts that deletes all the vowels. "Your calculator is clearly a deficient piece of crap designed by an idiot redhead" becomes something like "r clcltr s clrl dfcint pc f crp dsgnd b n dt rdhd". Always makes me laff. Fark does something goofy to people who try to "first post!" but i forget what it is. Maybe replace the user's text with an excerpt from Wuthering Heights...
A quick googling reveals this guy to be A WoW player and YTMND member with a posting history that makes me think he's incapable of wiping his own ass, let alone using your application correctly.
Just ban him, as killing him will be too much work and might be frowned upon.
awesome, imo
Or any combination of the above.
There should be a few people between world saving assignments willing to help out.
... and send him a horse's head.
That is all.
Bullying Institute
It's your site, where you are god. Delete the junk and ban the fucker! How hard is it ?
I know we're supposed to be non-confrontational and all that bullshit, but if someone barged into your home, started harassing you to the point of frustration, would you ask your shrink how to peacefully deal with it, or would you shove the bastard out the door and release the hounds ? /thread
-Billco, Fnarg.com
They'll do it regardless. You might as well blow off a little steam in the process, and then ban them when you're done.
People seriously need to make more use of profane language.
I was just going to suggest blocking their account and IP address, but routing them to the FUCK OFF page sounds a lot more fun.
Another option would be to let them post and just don't run the insert. Hehe. Hopefully after some really long ranting post, just direct them to the success page but don't actually post it.
The internet is a great outlet of expression for those lacking any impulse control.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
But I can't believe you are asking this motley group for advice on warding off demons!!! ROFLMFAO
There is NOTHING you can do, simply wait, flame them with the very best humor that you can muster and carry on like one of the 300. Read what Trespass says, there is a clue how to flame with style :)
With some humility (not a lot) I've been flamed quite well in the past, expect it in the future. Its ALWAYS good to see a really good flame, even if directed at yourself. Grin and bear it... learn to flame.
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
While the 'complainer' wasn't the most diplomatic person in the world, it looked to me like he could possibly have been raising some valid points. The submitter certainly engaged in back-and-forth, mostly civil academic debate. I certainly saw no bullying. If the submitter's time was wasted, he encouraged it.
To come and whine to Slashdot about 'bullying' is pretty ludicrous, or just obvious traffic-whoring.
Seriously! No wonder people can't get along on the Internet these days. I've got the thinnest skin of anyone I know, and I could barely find something to be offended by in that thread.
Was the OP being disingenuous in thanking the complainer for his input? As far as I could tell the whole exchange seemed rather cordial. Sure the complainer was mocking a little, but the useful content-to-mocking ratio in each post seemed very high to be calling him a bully.
Plus, now he's going to read your slashdot thread and hate you, and probably end up driving all your users out of your forum.
Good job.
Its Hammer Time(tm)....
Close your eyes...
I'm sure that nobody has ever had to deal with it before.
If they had then maybe they would have come up with a simple, straightforward response to the problem.
Block/ban and ignore. Duh.
Start a search on him. If he's given out enough info about who he is through his postings/username/etc, use that to lead to other details about him, such as addy, phone number, myspace/facebook, etc. With that, you can just show up at his house one day, tell him to STFU and leave it at that or just call him and let him know he can't hide on the Internet. If he doesn't have a trail, social engineer something out of him.
Either way, it'll probably scare the shit out of him that someone figured out where he lives. I'm guessing he'll think twice about it the next time he tries something like that online. Most "internet bullies" are cowards in real life, so I'd say revealing who he is will put a quick stop to his "rein of terror."
Just let him be... keep arguing and soon you will be like this guy
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/myl/llog/duty_calls.png
Never argue with a fool or they will consider themselves wise in their own eyes.
The best way to deal with fools is to ignore them. Delete their accounts, posts, and ban their IPs (if possible). Eventually, they will go away and find a place where they can get and audience. Fools do not want to be ignored. Their fool desires to show everyone their superior intellect and intelligence through their criticism of someone who has created/done something.
Ignore, delete, ban, repeat. Fools typically are too lazy to bother recreating an account and quickly move on.
Well, since you're mucking in the guts of the forum anyway, just make it so he's the only one who sees his own posts.
Information wants to be free.
Entertainment wants to be paid.
You just want to be cheap.
They are using phpBB which has some really cool mods that you can use to deal with trolls. Some of them are quite inventive. See here if you'd like.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
How Open Source Projects Survive Poisonous People (And You Can Too)
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4216011961522818645.
Just post his information and IP address on /.
It's your forum. Delete his crap and move on.
Simple, Ban him from the forum. He is not entitled to his opinion...oh wait
1. Start a website
2. Post a tool that a small number of the general populous would give 2 shits about
3. Find an asinine excuse to post it on Slashdot
4. Get web traffic
5. Profit?
So only he can see his own posts.
Ban him. He's not going to change his ways, you've warned him and he's just bringing down the experience of the others on the site.
Why dont you lighten up a little..Maybe switch to sanka or try flying a kite?
Yes. We want the internet to be about free speech though many people seem to think that means they are the only ones that should have the 'freedom'.
Ban him, it is you site and you do with it as you wish. If he doesn't like it he can create his own forums somewhere else and bitch as much as he wants. That is our freedom. You will get complaints no matter what you do so you may as well do what YOU want on your turf.
...any more than they can push you around.
The only thing you can really be judged by is your words.
Give your users the ability to ignore other users and make their posts disappear, and you'll see that the trolls' behaviour is curbed since it's now more inconvenient to continuously piss people off.
Then the trolls have to either keep making new accounts, or they have to contribute some to the discussion to actually participate, and either way you've won.
If you can read this, I forgot to post anonymously.
Ban them as soon as they go from constructive to troll. Ban by IP address, ID, email, etc.
---- Liquid was a patriot ----
"Do not offer sympathy to the mentally ill. Tell them firmly: I am not paid to listen to this drivel. You are a terminal boob." -- William S. Burroughs
YOU FUCKER! I poked the bear and now I only have one arm... which is totally unusable due to bee sting swelling! Thanks alot!
Make SELinux enforcing again!
that slashdot has been trolled.
quick and easy way to get yourself exposed to some traffic. geez. even I could've found a better excuse.
mov ax,4c00h
int 21h
I don't remember what it's called, but I do know that it exists for vBulletin and that there are probably clones for other board types.
Basically, when you flag a user with the plugin, all of their messages are automatically moderated - i.e. only moderators and they can see them. For all they know, everyone is just ignoring them.
It's not perfect but it's fun revenge to confuse the Hell out of a troll. And the best part is, if they want to complain about it, no one has to listen.
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
Tell him you will refund his money!!!
A friend of mine came up with a much more clever solution to recurrent trolls. Simply create a user profile that hides his posts from everyone but the troll himself. This way, he keeps ranting away, confident that he's being heard, until he gets disillusioned by the lack of interest and leaves of his own volition.
Genius, if you ask me.
Crumb's Corollary: Never bring a knife to a bun fight.
Slight commercial plug for a local NC author Patrick O'Keefe. He addresses this sort of thing in his book "Managing Online Forums".
http://www.managingonlineforums.com/buy-the-book/
I'm just a satisfied reader of the book. Many of the comments here are good and useful as they stand, but as your community grows, this book will be a handy resource and perhaps help you avoid some other problems before they happen.
FWIW, I had many of the same problems with a community I ran about 10 years, but there wasn't as much of a standard way of dealing with these sort of problems, both technically and culturally. Books like the one above (and no doubt others) help condense years of experiences down in to a manageable amount of info.
Good luck with your community!
creation science book
Rustylime.com online community once took on an Internet Bullying service (datingpsychos.com, a place where people laod all possible personal information about a victim and then try to extort the victim into paying to have it removed).
http://www.rustylime.com/show_article.php?id=1372
Members of the rustylime community found MySQL and PHP exploits on the datingpsychos site and were able, for a long time, to effectively keep it off the air. They were also able to find all the personal information about the publishers of the site, as well.
But seriously, ignore the person and ban his account. If he comes back, submit his email addresses to all the pron, medicine, debt consolidation and similar sites. Also put his address in a hidden field to multiple sites (so dumb scrapers will scrape it).
Get his phone number (social engineering) and submit that too everywhere, in fact, go to a pharmacy site and order something to him, his phone number will gets endless buy this - buy that calls...
Hmm... if that does not work hire Frank Rizzo ...
contrary to popular belief the internet is not a democracy, a persons rights and privileges only go as far as the webpage or forum owner wishes them to go.
you have the right to free speech, but not on someone elses space. if you dont like the way someone does something or what someone says then you are free to make your own page and express yourself there.
if the guy becomes a problem tell him in a private message that you don't believe they fit in well with the environment you are trying to have on your privately owned forums.
if they wish to not play by your rules remove them from your forums and they can go make their own and talk there.
See what you did? Instead of going straight to dirty tactics now you slashdotted your own site and exceeded your CPU limit.
Having visited the forum and read the exchange, I have to tell ya', my friend, you need to learn the difference between debate and bullying. Having seen real Internet bullying, the kind that includes words describing bodily orifices and fornication, you just can't consider this exchange bullying in any way. If you don't like what this guy has to say, then don't respond. And invest in a thicker skin if you're going to be running a forum.
Ban HAMMER!
If you run the forum, the best solution is to ban him, and ban him with every new account he makes.
I wonder what TWITTER'S feelings are about this matter. He's strangely quiet about it, the little psychopath.
At this point it may be redundant, but seriously, ignoring "internet bullies" is much easier that ignoring regular ones. If you can't distinguish between the two, you probably have problems of a much greater SHUT UP SHUT UP HOW CAN YOU SAY I'M WRONG YOU'RE WRONG I HATE YOU I HATE YOU I'M GOING TO KILL YOU ALL I'M GOING TO KILL MYSELF YOU STUPID BULLY
Bullies can only bully if people let them.
I can't comment on the calculator, because I thought it was stupid to sign up to use a friggin' calculator. Also, you're too friggin' nice, quit it.
That might block a few totally stupid trolls but I think most would wise up to it.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
No, feeding the trolls is different. What this person was doing before was feeding the trolls. This is simply stating you will no longer tolerate their behaviour on the forum.
grcumb did come up with a pretty clever answer though. I suggest telling them to fuck off, and hiding the trolls posts from anyone but themselves.
Ban Hammer.
Specialist Mac support for creative pros, Melbourne
1. Announce Fee for Subscription.
2. Grandfather those who groupthink like you.
3. Notify "bully" he must pay fee to maintain account.
4. Announce one year free trial for new members.
5. After a few months, renounce fee scheme.
6. Repeat as needed.
7. Profit! (either by receipt of funds or absence of bully)
Invenio via vel creo
It still is frustrating for the troll. He's trying to get attention and suddenly no attention is granted. Is he being ignored? Is he already on the "troll list" again? He registers another account and writes again. And again, no response. He never knows whether he truely is ignored or whether he is on the "troll list".
When you ban him, he gets feedback. He was banned. He knows he got your attention and you did something. When you "silently" ban him, you deny him this kind of feedback.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Just ban the fucker
While reading through the thread, I came across a note from the hosting provider indicating that he'd exceeded his CPU quota. I guess that's Slashdot bullying people now!
To be fair (and playing the obligatory devil's advocate), the accused bully may very well have been a troll. Remember, not all trolls are alike. Some can use fairly detailed information during their games. Perhaps one clue lies in the post wherein he attacks the use of phpBB--completely unrelated to the original discussion. "carlos" replies with an off-handed remark about phpBB being fairly "easy" to setup and administer, to which the accused bully indicates that there's no need to "split hairs" about something off-topic. That sort of smells like a troll to me. Lure someone out with a potentially inflammatory comment, and then rail them when they bite. It's entirely possible that BlackHawk0 was indeed hoping to improve the calculator, but his self-described disdain for the imperial system while also not being aware that some metric countries use "." as a thousands separator and "," as a decimal strikes me as unusual. I'm especially flabbergasted by the notion that BlackHawk0 appears to be using a non-English language version of Windows and is also unaware of this fact. (Hint: I suspect he's entirely aware of the differential usage of "," and "." but chooses to be publicly ignorant to further his criticism.)
Of course, "carlos" should have just dealt with this himself--or let it slide. If the "bully" in question is in fact a troll, you've just granted him more attention than he ever thought possible! Good going there, "carlos."
Actually, wouldn't it be funny if it turned out that this cyber-bully was the one who submitted the article under the guise of the site owner just to see if he could get the forum Slashdotted?
He who has no
You're only saying that because internet. In real life I would kick your ass. And you misspelled "furthermore", dumbface.
Actually, let everyone from his IP address see his posts. Else trolls with half a clue will "verify" with a second account whether they're being heard.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
the site does not run you.
You could feed them a little. Just a few replies here and there, and at a minimum it'll take them longer to get the idea.
I dont know anything about airplane design (model or real) but I read the whole thread and it looks to me to be a discussion between two experts with differing opinions on a highly technical subject.
Personally, I think this is a case of "Precious Programmer" - a programmer who has got their back up when their "labour of love" gets some fairly serious, detailed crititism. I am a programmer and I understand the feeling when something you've poured your soul into gets criticised by someone who DOES know what they are talking about, and they've gone through the software with a fine-tooth comb (which is a good trait for a beta-tester hint hint).
Mind you, there's fault on both sides - the guy doing the criticism, while his views/concerns on the calculations might be valid, should understand that the intended audience for this software is the beginner/noobie model aircraft person, not the aspiring airline designer (who, I would hope, would NOT be using an online model aircraft calculator to design their planes!), so I would think some safe assumptions in the coding of this software are valid, and he should understand that (particulary if he IS a programmer like he says)
Keep the discussion to email (since 1% of your forum's users would probably understand what the hell you are both going on about!), agree to disagree, grow a thick skin, offer to use him as a beta tester(!) and continue with what you are doing if you believe in it. It looks like a good idea on the surface...
Oh, you and your stupid ideas! FUCK OFF!
-- My apologies if the above facts contain any opinions, or vice versa! --
So, you're telling him to feed the troll? Let the troll know that he's getting to you, and he'll just do it more. If you run the forum, the best solution is to ban him, and ban him with every new account he makes.
In many cases, this is the only option. It is typically a long and protracted battle, but eventually even the most persistent troll will relent if your dedication and resolve never falters.
Ban every IP and username that is associated with any troll-like behavior. Review your server and BB log files and ban every intrusion attempt. (Very often trolls are script kiddies and will make attempts at cracking your site and/or BB.)
Ultimately, it is a contest of wills: Your commitment to your site/BB has to be strong enough that you will endure and never concede defeat. If you want to emerge the victor, you can never give up.
The down side is that you *may* wind up burning a few innocents in the process if you aren't careful. It's a risk, but if your content is important to you, it's unfortunate but necessary.
For those of us who aren't trolls, it isn't possible to pity such a thing. We can only look at it as a curiosity and wonder how it came to be and why it chooses to continue existing in such a state.
In meatspace, "Orwellian" has bad connotations, because it's morally questionable to make dissenters disappear into the dead of night when it involves killing them.
Online, though, it's just the only way to go. In any place where you have authority - like your own website - then if anyone crosses you, don't say a word to them. Don't say a word to anyone else. Just erase their account and ban their IP. If they come back, do it again. If anyone notices and asks about it, don't comment.
Nothing takes a forum down faster than drama, and the best way to avoid drama is to simply ensure that no one is allowed to voice dissent. I am in no way kidding. On a site that discusses model airplanes, even the tiniest bit of unpleasantness should be dealt with with a swift and permanent ban and expunging of all evidence that the user and his unpleasantness ever existed.
"Beware he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he deems himself your master."
Set up a "Pit of hell" forum, where trolls are encouraged to post. Make their life easy.
The site I've seen this done, made that forum the most innactive of them all.
I guess, people had to consciously accept, by clicking on that subforum, that they're about to troll, and simply backed off from the activity.
Simply move offending posts to this subforum. You can check it out from time to time for a laugh.
Letting morons like this access the internet is akin to giving a bunch of loaded .45's to 10 year olds in a locked room. Just give it some time, they'll eventually kill themselves or one of the others.
you shouldn't be on the Internet in the first place. Bullies control the Internet, but there is really nothing you can do to stop them. If you ban their account, they create a new one. If you ban their IP address they use a proxy server or Tor. If you ban Tor and proxy servers they will use friend's computers, library computers, Internet cafe computers, etc. They will even use viruses to make a victim's computer act as a zombie and can control Botnets of their own.
You just don't want your web site turning into another Kuro5hin type web site. Originally Kuro5hin was a lot like Slashdot, until bullies started to take it over. Then it chased away a lot of loyal users. Whomever remained was either a troll, a bully, or a victim. Then a few victims committed suicide, and recently one victim got admitted to a mental hospital. In order to deal with it the owner made it so new accounts cost $5 to activate, but bullies would gladly pay $5 to keep being bullies and keep control of the web site.
You either deal with them in an effective way, or you give into them, or you shut down your web site, or you just charge $5 to create a new account and let everyone else suffer and get rich off of the misery that bullies cause. If you know of another way to deal with bullies, let the rest of us know.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
You sound like a total pussy.
Don't like it, don't make a free website. It's because of people like you that we get all these crazy laws for the interwebs.
Why don't you cry about it, saddlebags?
Ban'em and move on.
Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!
Grab real-life vinnie and guido and go over their house. It's so simple cavemen can do it.
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
here. There aren't perfect answers, unfortunately, but there are some pretty good ones.
Just blacklist their ip - or kill them... whichever is easier.
It appears that blackhawke is criticizing the issues and is trying to make a valid argument. It is not trolling by any means. His messages are in no way malicious. Why are you posting this here on slash dot? Instead of writing him off as a troll tell him his mistakes and let the thread die. Banning him or silently banning him won't do anything but show that you can't handle poor constructive criticism. Simply ignoring him will do a world of good. Sure there will be some dedicated posters respond to him but they'll eventually give up and this guy will go away. Just show him the errors of his ways and he'll (hopefully) change.
Welcome to the real world, now
Grow up, and get over it.
Never pick a fight with someone crazier then you. Instead of fighting, ignore them and put all that time and energy into volunteering for Habitat For Humanity or something similar. Then again, you could take a lesson from the Middle East and blow up a school bus full of children in protest.
some people just want to see the world burn
1) /dev/null // Suggested rating: "funny"
2) teach the sumbitch aerodynamics of a baseball bat.
YEARS ago, in the dawning age of the local BBS scene in Rhode Island, one board had a special user moderation, for a single user.
The troll could post to it's heart's content, and it was the only person who would see its comments. No one else even knew the troll was posting anything.
Watching its frustration levels rise because no one was responding was quite entertaining.
Guaranteed! This comment 100% Anthrax free!
"Arguing with anonymous strangers on the Internet is a sucker's game because they almost always turn out to be--or to be indistinguishable from--self-righteous sixteen-year-olds possessing infinite amounts of free time." -Neal Stephenson
Goddamn it, that's what they did to me!!! But how come my posts still modded down to -1?
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
It's redundant because just quoting movie lines at one another is pointless and stupid. You know how normal people tend to regard geeks as losers? It's because a hell of a lot of us do lame shit like this. It's an embarrassment.
Humor would be greatly stifled if the only jokes that were permitted to be considered funny are those that a majority of the public would like. Humor is personal, and if two people find a joke funny (and it hurts no one else), then who are you to say that those two people should stop laughing?
If the masses don't like that, then screw 'em. What kind of pathetic, inhibited loser stifles their own laughter for fear of not being "cool" enough?
(That said, marking Monty Python jokes Redundant is a valid reaction. You are allowed to boo other people's jokes after all. I'm just saying that fear of that shouldn't stop you from making them in the first place.)
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Or even better, don't tell them that they're banned. Just let them keep posting, but they're the only ones who sees their posts.
You are a genius. That's the best idea I've ever heard for dealing with trolls.
Why has no one done this before?
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Post his IP on slashdot and say " No h4ax0r can pooon my box bitches! ", he'll never bother you again.
Congratulations on completely missing the point.
He is not defining a whitelist of humor wherein only certain jokes are permitted. He is attempting to describe a single item from what should be a universal comedic blacklist.
Clever references are funny. Continuing the reference beyond its relevant portion is a shallowly vain tactic in which one merely attempts to demonstrate that he also gets the joke and is thus deserving of being held in social esteem at least as high as the original maker of the joke.
It's not humor. It's not a joke. It's pathetic attention whoring borne of an insecure ego, and your getting so defensive at it getting the derision it deserves leads me to believe you're part of the problem.
Stop crying about comedic oppression when what you defend is completely unrelated to humor.
It depends on the amount of traffic the site is getting. If you're on a larger forum, then no matter how much restraint that you personally show, there will always be other people on the site that will take the bait and bite. What's more, if you, as the moderator, do not step in at some point, then the troll recognizes the lack of authority being exercised and understands that it's open season for whatever games he wants to play.
As for the original post, however... it's odd that that's the post that started a discussion about trolling. The OP seems to be the only one who responded to the guy. Reading the post, I get the idea that this guy believed the words he was saying in argument, but that he his opinion was heavily clouded by personal prejudice, lack of experience, and quoting of imperfect sources. (For more on that topic, read, oh, any thread on class balance at forums.worldofwarcraft.com.)
If you're running a site for a specific limited interest, then you should have the right to say, I'm locking threads that I deem should be reasonably locked. I'm not giving you a specific list of what is considered reasonable debate or constructive criticism and what is considered trolling. If you're trolling or bullying, then I'm locking the thread. If you do it more than once, I'm tempbanning your nick. And the regular, friendly users of your site will understand your intentions.
In the case of the post in the OP, I'm not sure it was so bad. The site's author took the time to read the guy's sources, but realized that they were bogus. I think the major advice I would give to the OP is: trust your gut. If someone sounds like they're just whining and ranting without having much basis for their opinion, then they probably are.
Libertarians somehow believe that private businesses should be stronger than governments but weaker than individuals.
JESUS FUCKING CHRIST, editor!!! You actually let this guy use a cheesy, "Please help me with a bully," plea to drive traffic to his site?
What the hell?
Note: I'm not posting anonymous, mod me the fuck down.
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
You sound like a total pussy. Don't like it, don't make a free website. It's because of people like you that we get all these crazy laws for the interwebs.
Sounds like you're one of the people posting on his website :)
Jeez, I just read your exchange. I can summarize it like this:
Him: "Hey, your software is cool, here's some detailed info on what I think is broken."
You: "Oh, wow, thanks! Okay, let me look at this...okay, I think you're right about this, but wrong about this. Did you click the metric button or something?"
Him: "Thanks for the response. Yeah, I clicked the metric button, which is why you're seeing metric units. Well, I kinda think I'm right about the second thing. Here's why...man, these screen shots were hard to attach and format commentary for, while I'm still writing this, I'd like to add that you should consider using some other software for this forum."
You: "Metric confuses me [ed: who knows why you made a 'Metric' button if Metric confuses you]. Please RTFM. Also, I ignore a bunch of stuff right now but I think it's unimportant."
Him: "Awesome, thanks. By the way, I found this other weird stuff. And I do think this stuff is important, because saying its accurate could actually hurt or kill people. Just sayin'."
You: "Okay. And wow, I didn't look at that other thing. Here's how I fixed it. Thanks! Also RTFM."
Him: "Cool. But I think your fix is wrong because of this disastrous situation that could put a kid's eye..."
You: "You're wrong. **EDIT** Oh, you're right! I'll make that more clear. **TO SLASHDOT** OMG TEH TROLLZz!!11!!"
I mean, the guy wrote a total of five posts (which puzzling make up over 12% of the total posts on your "recently popular" forums), and they all used a lot of "I" messages, none were inflammatory, and they all had a lot of detail about what's wrong with your app (I mean, the guy posted screenshots of your app detailing what he thought was wrong...it's pretty clear that he spent a *long* time writing up what he wrote up).
That he followed up in the same thread with new problems, well, maybe you could say, "let's start a new thread for that new problem." For the most part, the "new problems," were very related to your responses, though.
I think that you need to start taking criticism and suggestions more openly, especially if you're going to operate a forum about your website. And please, please, don't think that I'm a jerk for telling you all of this. I really mean it in the best way. Internet software is cool, and I'm glad to see you writing something fun, so keep on writing the good write, and keep on foruming.
And don't dismiss guys that criticize your software, especially if they use screenshots to do so :).
The Right Reverend K. Reid Wightman,
Write a nice letter to Theodore Kaczynski, prisoner number 04475-046 @ United States Penitentiary Administrative Maximum Facility (ADX) in Florence, CO. Advise him that you are aware of a individual of interest that is using technology to further his cause of creating a feeling of inferiority in you using his extreme leftest views. Then suggest he might like to send this joker a package.
(Please note that this was written in sarcasm. Don't do this unless you like visits form the F.B.I.)
and have him internet beat them up.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
Light mockery works. Get heavy and you've simply traded shoes (if you're not laughing you're angry). But honestly, if it's your site it's not a democracy; lock the thread or delete the account. In the larger scheme it's a win for you and a win for the rest of your guests.
Quack, quack.
Do you think CmdrTaco could do this with twitter?
This must be a troll. Or French. Maybe French troll.
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
Some of them are just assholes.
Quack, quack.
How DARE anyone out there make fun of twitter after all he's been through!?!
He lost his karma, he went through bad moderation. He had diarrhea.
M$ turned out to be stalking him, liars and cheaters, and now they troll his journal entriez!!
He hasn't posted at +1 in years. His song is called "Give me more sockpuppets" for a reason because all you
people want is MORE MORE MORE!!!
Leave twitter alone PLEASE! Right Now! I MEAN IT!!!
LEAVE HIM ALONE!!!!
(with apologies to that gay guy)
Works beautifully until they get a second monitoring account.
Your first post was out of whack. Your second post completely drove my boner into the ground. Good job.
Cute saying, but attributing it to GBS, of all people, is quite lame.
I recently had a client who wanted to use my customizable social networking engine - as it's free to clients who use it, any custom work that takes more than roughly 10-15 minutes, or isn't benefitting other members or clients, is charged.
However, we've just had one guy that logged many calls, was sharp and arrogant, wanted customized work done free of charge, baulked when it took a few days for me to liaise with his web designer (after some confusion about what he actually wanted us to do!), complained after anything was done and obviously had a chip on his shoulder.
So today, he 'threatened' to close his account, so I did it for him, told him that we were done - and left it at that...
You should do the same, it's YOUR community, YOUR members, not his - if you don't like a member tell him to go somewhere else. Ban him (and his IP) and then put your valued efforts into more deserving and respectful members and forget the minority that ruin it for everyone else.
This is so true. especially with certain women. you know the type, self-absorbed, crazy bitches. i know this chick, gorgeous.. we became friends.. she'd be a bit intimidating. that's just her.. the minute i met her it started like that. though i was quick on my feet & neutralized it. all my life it's something i've been trying to learn & master.. to understand women.. anyways it would start one day when she'd 'warn' me she was 'feeling sick' on a night we were supposed to go to a concert. total PMS type behavior. she'd come to pick me up (yeah i have a DUI, whoops.) & bitch about me not being out the door on time, when i'd already waited an extra half hour for her to show up.. then the music i had one was 'too spastic'... etc. the next time she was in a bad mood bc she had a 'bad day', & then pretty soon, every time we hung out, that's just how she was: a raging bitch. & me being a peace-loving guy & missing the girl who was sweet & funny & animated & fun to be around would want to keep the peace by appeasing her. big mistake. the more i tried it seemed the less satisfied she was. no we weren't even dating. i'd make deals with her since i can't drive that if she'd drive or give me a ride i'd cover her drinks or gas or whatever (we have a lot of mutual friends & to get out to see them was murder on me since i coudln't drive) & she'd pick me up & complain that i was 8 miles out of the way, etc.
anyways i realized the pattern... i mean, no matter what i said or did, i was somehow an idiot because of it.. whatever i chose to do, was either too fast, too slow, too boring, too crazy, you get the idea. so i realized no matter what i did this would always be the case & figured i was just best off no longer dealing with her.
so one day came where she had a 'proposition' for me.. -basically one that would take hours and yield almost no profit, yet her own stripper math theorized it would be a lucrative proposition. at that point she denied ever intending to share the money & accused me of trying to take advantage of her. i kept my cool with her.. but this time since i figured her out it was different..
basically, once i STOPPED trying to figure her out, was when i was finally starting to. since i was finally aware of her bullshit i would call her out on it or just not dignify it with an argument. i realized she was trying harder to start an argument. i asked her if she cared about what bothered me because she was being my friend, or was she trying to start a fight? she was all over the place. at first i was being 'insensitive' & that she felt friends should talk about things. once i started to explain things that were bothering me she just said 'i don't remember', not -'i don't remember, but i'm sorry if i did do those things' like a normal person. when she said she didn't remember i said 'hey i'm not making this up' & she said 'i'm not calling you a liar. i said 'no but you're not apologizing either'. i responded calmly & quickly & in an amused manner. truly amused, i dind't need to fake anything. she was just all over the place & it was almost hilarious once i realized how clear all this was. it went like this & finally she gave up. oh god that felt so sweet.
-i didn't talk to her for 6 months. the funny thing is we're really good friends now. i didn't do anything ugly to tell her to fuck off, and by not dignifying her with that final argument i didn't let her do anything too blatant to offend me. i let that silent time allow her to wonder if i might have just thought she was a crazy idiot. i also used that silence to let her own friendships with our other mutual friends go south.
the funny thing is she's an awesome chick. ever since then she's been VERY cool, thoughtful, considerate, & respectful. she's being the girl i first met. she respects me as well. we make an awesome team when we go out (that's a really long story actually).
i used her as a learning experience, still do. i figure
Having dealt with someone this once before, the answer is to just kick them off the site. If they are not contributing anything positive then they have no business on the site. Even if they make positive contributions, if the net is disruptive then just give them the boot. Its your site and you have the right to kick them off.
Routing them to the FUCK OFF page sounds a lot more fun.
Better yet, for a taste of their own medicine, rout them to a goatse image in a low enough resolution, loading fast enough, that they'll be staring at it before they have time to react, in horror and disbelief.
Or how's this for evil genius: rout them to a blank page with so much bad script that it will crash their browser, maybe even force them to reboot!
Lil' Thindime, lilting a lacrimose lament, krashes the kwaint konfines of Kokonino Kounty
internet bullies are well known for their rude behavior and their antics often lead to suicide or self-mutilation. Neither case is beneficial to society, depending on the individual case. But I would suggest that you petition your state government to enact strict anti-bully laws that restrict the ability of bullies to express their opinion on the internet. Remedies can include jail time but the best solution is public humiliation of some sort.. possibly collecting garbage on the roadside or standing on the street corner carrying a large sign explaining their anti-social behavior. As you can see our neighbor to the north is a real pioneer in the anti-bully arena. http://www.safecanada.ca/link_e.asp?category=28&topic=164 The speech of the online bully is curtailed and then they are penalized by the government through various methods. Children and adults (in your case) can breath a sigh of relief knowing that voices of interference and difference will bring harm against themselves. I would encourage state governments and the federal government to write new draconian laws that would drastically reduce the freedom of speech that cyber-bullies enjoy in our present system. There is no reasonable person alive that can argue against harsh measures against these creeps.. and I will do everything in my power to minimize and destroy these bullies, even if that includes threats of murder, kidnapping, torture and anger management classes... I will fuck you people over.. don't get in my way, don't step in front of me or I will smash you to pieces, no mercy.. I will kidnap your mom, rape her and sodomize your entire family tree until you bleed from your eyes.. You know what thats like motherfucker? I will fucking kill you! I am there and waiting for you .. make your move bitch!
Me too!
Ignore them?
1&1 - Cheap domain and web hosting.
This only addresses a part of you problem, but maybe it will help.
/. would be so different if some users employed either of these methods...
When someone flames me or is trolling, I have a course of action I try to minimize the flamewar or feeding of trolls:
Type up a nasty fiery flame back at them full of all kinds of potty mouth words and really let them have it. I mean go all out in your reply, say stuff you wouldn't want anyone's mother to hear, let alone yours. Break the rules of etiquette and anything goes! Get at least half a page of total baiting, trollfeeding, trolling back, personal attacks and basically let your rage out. IMPORTANT: Then, don't post it. Instead, copy it to some file in a folder named "posts never meant to be posted" and put all kinds of password protection and encryption on it so it can't come back to haunt you. Strangely, this works for me. You just can't feck up the part where you -don't- click "post."
I have a friend that utilizes the 24-hour-rule. When someone does something that really riles him up, he waits 24 hours before responding because it drastically reduces the chances of him getting ban sited, sued, arrested, his arse kicked, fired, labeled a troll, etc... That can be good advice, but I prefer my way, because I get to express some emotion instantly, and the gratification is still there even if no one else sees it. I'm weird though.
Think of how
~WBGG~ "And I'm so sad like a good book I can't put this Day Back a sorta fairytale with you" ~Tori Amos
Seriously. Never make a troll's monologue a dialogue. It's your site, so use your ban-hammer. You will never convince them with words anyway.
Looks that way to me too, but if you look at the replies to this story seems most people didn't both to (a) read yours, or (b) think about it before posting. Web 2.0 is a nice way of feeling like people are listening to you, when they don't and you don't listen to them either. Circlejerk is the term I'm thinking of.
Well RCADman. Nice PR work there. You suckered them good.
Thank you for nailing it in a far more succinct manner than I would've ever been able to. For the love of god someone mod this comment up!
I've learned that they're worthless, so I don't read AC comments anymore.
Just ban the idiot.
Problem fixed.
You seem to be asking for a solution short of deleting this 'bully' from your discussion board. The answer is that your board is either open to all or you moderate. No matter how you moderate some will call it censorship. But the fact is that J. Random Person can kill any public conversation if they're persistent.
Trolls are real but it's the true believer or someone with a grudge you have to worry about. Bullies tire of opposition.
My suggestion is to moderate and moderate openly. Generate a policy that says spurious attacks will be deleted. Publish it and then act on it if necessary.
And one more thing, grow a backbone will ya.
--
Hypertext isn't what it's marked up to be.
When someone wants to play internet bully with me, I usually start off with unleashing the full force of my skillz upon them, which means turning off their electricity, ordering lots of stuff on their credit cards, war dialing them with different ANI's every minute, 24 hours a day for many months, forwarding their phone number to the dungeon (+1 800-800-8900), setting up ATT Alliance conference bridges and billing it to them ($7000/day), sending hundreds of magazine subscriptions to their house, getting them fired from their job, rm'ing the backup tapes at their job and then rm'ing all the servers one by one, rm'ing their home machines, sending the cops to their house (the old "shots fired" trick), monitoring their IP connection by owning their ISP, hijacking their session and injecting random taunts into the stream is always fun too, among other things.... after that, I usually verbally taunt them until they start to cry and beg for my forgiveness... Read the Brotherhood of Warez newsletters for more information.
Take the high road. Drives 'em crazy every time.
One thing I can tell you for sure - bitching and moaning on slashdot it not the answer. You just attracted a million more trolls to your site. Enjoy
this may sound cliche but forum users suck, full stop (no offense)
-employed by a site with a fsckin forum
From my ebook, about a certain Mr.Molony: "[He] is already known on at least one Titanic forum, where his immature antics, personal vituperations and smug inability to debate politely had forced the foreclosure on many discussions on the Californian subject. For example, http://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/discus/messages/6584/100461.html?1132189270 and http://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/discus/messages/6584/100215.html for the infamous âoeelephants in the living roomâ thread, http://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/discus/messages/6584/95010.html and http://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/discus/messages/6584/94725.html For a âoeresearch articleâ on a non-Californian matter, see http://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/item/5407/ and http://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/item/5041/ but rebuttals are at http://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/item/5400/ and http://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/item/5409/ " Rather like the message posted by the OP, this individual won't admit when he is wrong, and changes the subject too.
My web domain.
He is not defining a whitelist of humor wherein only certain jokes are permitted. He is attempting to describe a single item from what should be a universal comedic blacklist.
Then you missed mine completely. Any attempt to make such a blacklist is just elitist arrogance.
It's not humor. It's not a joke. It's pathetic attention whoring borne of an insecure ego, and your getting so defensive at it getting the derision it deserves leads me to believe you're part of the problem.
If that person finds it funny and someone else does too (as seen by the Funny mods), then it's humor whether you like it or not. It's not your place to be the high holy watchguard of humor who tells the little people what is funny or not.
(And "if you defend it, you must be just as bad" is a 3rd grader's argument. What's next, "I am rubber, you are glue?")
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
(Translation from Bullian to English:)
"Actually, I don't think he was saying that using Monty Python references is bad. Just the neverending continuation of the joke."
Nevertheless, I laughed at the sequence, but thank you for your suggestion anyway. I'm sure that we'll all think about it.
http://dilbert.com/2010-12-13
My take on the guy is that he is not the "internet bully" you have labeled him to be. It looks more like he was actually trying to help you and, instead of graciously accepting his input and ending it there, you immediately countered him with arguments on why he must be wrong. From that point on, the subject shifted from topic to grandstanding over one another.
If anything, you're probably as much to blame as the guy himself. Perhaps even more so on your part, since you are the authority figure. By allowing yourself to be a part of a recursive pissing contest like this, you are setting the example that this behavior is somehow acceptable.
Furthermore, did you consider the possibility that the guy took your immediate "corrections" to his "mistakes" as a sign of disrespect?
Being in control of a public forum requires restraint if you want people to continue visiting. You need to be seen honoring your own rules of conduct, and avoid the temptation to abuse your authority as a means of achieving a quick fix to a minor problem.
8==8 Bones 8==8
fail... all trolls get feedback. if they are on the banlist they will know it because someone will eventually tell them to stfu.. tehy will jsut try harder, proxies etc.. you gotta fight trolls by ignoring them, denouncing them to others" hes just a troll and he wants attention ignore him".. confront trolls with their very exsistance, or if your skills are up to par, deal them a debilitating hand and then ignore them
attention is the reason trolls exist
-
The reality of the situation is, there are only a few hundred posters on Slashdot, max. The rest are all twitter.
It's a very elaborate troll.
Keep in mind the old 80/20 rule: 20% of your customers (users, in this case) cause 80% of the trouble. Solution: kick them out and stop wasting time on them.
Short email message "Thanks for your feedback, which I consider to be misinformed. Communications terminated." and either kick him off the forums or simply ignore him competely from now on.
And why you deserve this? Well, two reasons:
a) You are somebody who takes such idiots terribly seriously, and worries enough about them to ask Slashdot (Slashdot, of all places!) for help.
b) In your previous life, you were a hamster and chewed through the cables inside a computer server.
Enjoy your website!
Free PC version of ChipWits at http://www.breueronline.de/klaus/chipwits/
Ask him for his real name if he says it's Burt Rutan do what he says, otherwise mod down/delete/ignore his posts. Require users to register to post, require new users write a blerb to get their accounts approved, and then just keep him out...
It's your site, your server you code. You have a small peaceful community. Just delete his account and move on.
Horns are really just a broken halo.
You've bought into the new-age feel-good philosophy that's taken America like cancer. All opinions are not equal, and you must realize that humor itself can be objectively defined to some limited degree.
Making a funny reference involves making a non-obvious connection to something with which your audience is familiar. It's clever. It requires wit.
Extending a reference is exactly that. It is pasting more of the script. All of the intellectual heavy lifting has already been performed. There is no joke. No punchline. No real value at all.
Judging someone's sense of humor gets into tricky territory, but it is easy to objectively view this situation and realize that if no joke is being made, the only fashion in which it can be funny is an ironic one unintended by the author.
Not the first time I've heard this idea, but it is rather smart you just have to be creative with how you write your code.
Send the troll a link to what is apparently a special build of the application, that addresses all his complaints. Although in reality, the link just goes to a Rick Astley video clip. He may not stop trolling, but he will suffer from a serious case of earworm for at least a few hours.
... and then they built the supercollider.
I'm French you insensitive cl...
wait it's true!
Well anyway, I have read French Trolls that would eat GP for breakfast in a trolling competition... So stop under-estimate us!
[/false stupid pride]
(\__/) This is Lapinator
(='.'=) copy it in your sig
(")_(") so it can take over the world
Consider "devoweling". You go through their post, or use software, to remove each and ever vowel.
Then you blame it on a strange technical glicht you'll investigate ASAP.
Cnsdr "dvwlng". Y g thrgh thr pst, r s sftwr, t rmv ch nd vr vwl.
Thn y blm t n strng tchncl glcht y'll nvstgt SP.
This is why Ip bans, shadow bans and any kind of ban are mostly discretionary... They are made because the posters usually go against the opinion of the moderator. If you don't like to listen different opinions, don't create/manage a forum. You will turn into a fascist opressor. Let the crowd speak, even if it trolls (in your opinion).
Math is beautiful... e^(pi*i)+1=0
"Tachy Goes to Coventry" is a feature in vBulletin 3. Some people call it the hellban. Basically what it does is have people it is assigned to completely ignored in the forums. Their posts, threads and so forth are never seen by regular users.
From the vB3 Control Panel under vBulletin Options -> User Banning Options:
This option allows you to effectively add a user or users to every member's 'Ignore List'. However, users in this list can still see their own posts and threads...
vBulletin 3 also allows timed bans for periods as short as a day up to and including permanent bans.
http://www.theadminzone.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-222.html
Answer their questions within the realms of possibility then ban their ASS when they start bad mouthing people.
I tried searching for the acronym ASS: nothing. So I asked a friend, and he said I couldn't find it with a road map. Am I missing something here?
Blank until
You really need to RTFA on this one. That has to be one of the tamest threads I've ever seen. There's no point in telling the OP to ban or block the dude - he wasn't even trolling, let alone being a bully. There is nothing to see here; I'm getting suspicious that someone just wanted to generate some traffic...
fills up tour DB more to go through each query therefore slows down forum for every other user. Also could be a pain if he wants to move the DB to another server at some point in the future when he finds it's several times the size than it should be.
Dude,
your forum has 6 registered users and is ~2 months old...
now is has 6 registered users and 2500+ views on that topic but only like 50 on any other..
nice try but epic fail dude... you cheated the slashdot editors good..
oh.. and trolling is an art of communication in the internet age... if you can't handle it go offline and talk with your mom instead... it's 2008 for christs sake...
You're absolutely right. At no point do the posts by Blackhawk0 amount to personal attacks, it all appears to be quite constructive criticism. If you don't like people picking holes in your work, don't offer them a public forum in which to do so.
You'll find that plenty of people's favourite sitcoms are the ones where they can see the jokes coming a mile off. Personally, mine tend to be the black comedies with no laughter tracks. Are you saying that people who like catchphrase-based sitcoms are actually not laughing when they make that laughing noise, but when they watch the comedies I like they are secretly bursting with laughter but suppressing it?
"Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something" - Plato
http://www.gerv.net/presentations/lugradio2007/
Logical Fallacies
Loaded words
Slippery slope
Dicto simpliciter
Argumentum ad temperantiam
Definitional Retreat
False Analogy
Ignoratio elenchi
Argumentum ad populum
Argumentum ad misericordiam
Post hoc ergo propter hoc
Poisoning The Well
False Dichotomy
Having a terms of use is a good idea, it will help you legitimate users to know what is acceptable, but it won't get rid of trolls. At least half the trolls are psychopaths. (the other half bored kids)
Psychopaths love lots of detailed rules, because they love screwing the system, and lots of rules not only disrupt legitimate activity, assuming they are enforced uniformly, they allow the psychopath to dance around them without breaking them.
Let's say for example, you make a rule saying "only IT personnel are allowed to set foot in the server room." They'll happily obey the rule and just lean in the room or use a stick and take things / mess with stuff. You can revise the rule, but they'll just find a way around it or try something somewhere else. Once you have been around them for a while, you realize you can't just make rules to solve the troll problem.
If you really keep on them for a long time, eventually they stop trying to disrupt things, but as soon as you turn your back, they'll start back up again. The only hope is to identify them and get rid of them one way or another. If you are stuck with them for some reason, well, ignoring them is the least waste of energy.
after you are sure that they are acting in bad faith, ban. thats what moderation features are for.
Read radical news here
The disappearing pencil trick :)
The disappearing pencil trick. Let me show you it.
Is the app in question open source?
If yes, tell him to fix it himself.
If not, then you deserve to be bullied and much more besides, you evil corporate freedom hating M$ shill.
HTH.
yours sincerely,
RMS.
... and burn his house down.
Now the troll can point his friends to Slashdot and say "that article's about me!"
Your forum is a dictatorship - not a democracy. It may be a benevolent dictatorship, but it is what it is. You have the right to ban a member of your forum. Letting the person continue to stir up trouble will just upset others as well as yourself. Get rid of the person from your forum by banning him, or put him on moderated status if you have that option. Realize that he or she might come back under a new username, so you might consider moderating all new members for their first few posts, or even just their first post, which will often tell you if they are a spammer or a troublemaker.
You are a very public spirited person and you gave that jerk a lot more of your time than he deserves.
My favourite bit was that he was in too much of a hurry to read the tutorial, but he had plenty of time to be a jerk in his long, long postings
No, this guy is just very enthusiastic, he just likes to talk and argue about this stuff. Be honest about the time you have to spend at this.
...are OVER-biased distro-haters or pro-FSF and anti-FSF preachers and hypocrites (all four possibilities).
They strongly bias newcomers to Linux against or for certain distributions without letting them know that distros are not human beings and typically Linux distros are not like the Windows OS.
Any advice of NOT going to so-and-so distro prevents the n00b from seeing a distro that might actually be good for him.
B0rking the install is possible/common in *ALL* distros - depends on the user, but these fucking trolls or perverts effectively waste people's valuable time by preventing them from using a certain distro - what do they _gain_?
NOTHING.
YET, they stop you from using a particular distro.
Fuckers. Trolls.
Lord Linus take note of this.
St Ignucius, take note of this.
Like you take note of everything else needed or not.
Fuckers. Crooks. Rogues.
Ignore them!
Hackers have long memories. It works both ways.
Welcome on the internets. It's called trolling, some people enjoy it.
The solution is simple, it's *your* forum, your rules. So either ignore him, reply something along the lines of "so if you know the subject so well why don't you build a better calculator about it" or simply ban the fucker. It's not that hard really.
Every expression is true, for a given value of 'true'
Works beautifully until they get a second monitoring account.
Persistent Trolls tend to have other stereotypical behaviors (e.g. particular patterns of searches after they log in) that make identifying them relatively easy (and, more to the point, possible to automate).
"Little does he know, but there is no 'I' in 'Idiot'!"
Or ban the IP and hope that he's a stupid fella.
Simple solutions to simple problems: see here
The world you experience is only a close approximation of reality.
People are laughing. You don't find it funny, sure, whatever.
But noOoOo... you have to go on a rant bitching about it.
I suggest you have that stick surgically removed from your ass.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
Either ignore them and hope they'll get bored and find someone else to troll, or LART them: tell them they can shove their opinion up their ass and set up your host to block their ip range.
Unless, like most trolls, they have more than one account. If I log in to a second account and notice that I can't see my troll account's posts, I know it's time for a new troll account.
If someone is annoying you on your own forums, delete and ban him.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Actually, while generally frustrating, it _is_ possible to utterly wipe the floor with that kind of "rhetoricians."
First of all, I think "rhetorician" is too mild and misleading a term. And I'll disagree with your assessment of their motives. _Some_ are indeed the prom-queen you describe, but most IMHO are a different beast. It's usually some insecure nerd, whose whole self-image and self-respect is built upon an idea like "smart people don't make mistakes, I'm smart, ergo I don't make mistakes. Ever." The inordinate amount of effort they put into defending a dumb statement is really just defending the integrity of that mental model. The fall from that kind of temple to oneself can be _hard_. But at any rate, I think that's what motivates them. Even winning over the masses is just yet another tool, not an end. It's building the stage for an appeal to popularity fallacy, but that's just yet another fallacy in their arsenal. Again, it's means, not end.
Also, I don't think most as much thrive on the debate, as hurt and lash back. They may savour the victory, but not the fact that you're (in their view) attacking their god-like genius. Cognitive dissonance is a bitch, when it depends on an untenable position. And that's what they're doing: defending an edifice of cognitive dissonance. And the more untenable it is, the harder they'll fight back.Anyway, here's what you can do:
Step 1: Assume that he probably isn't, if it's the first post or second. People just make mistakes, and there's no need to be a bully by jumping directly to the "OMG, you used a fallacy" counter-attack. Point out the mistake politely.
Step 2: Once they have proven amply that they're not giving up on using fallacies, dismantle those. Study that list well. Then dismantle all of them. Every single appeal to false authority, every single non sequitur, every single straw man, etc. Show their argument to be the empty bullshit-bingo round that it is. They'll come with a new one. Repeat. Remember that it's actually less fun for them than it is for you, if it makes you feel any better.
Their argument _only_ works because people either genuinely can't spot those fallacies, or have a strong impression that they're bullshitted but can't prove what's wrong with it. Once you _can_ you're already orders of magnitude more prepared to deal with it.
The caveats here are many. In no particular order:
A. Don't deviate from the plan. Like a Roman Legion or Greek Phalanx, it only works at all if all parts work together. Don't let yourself be baited out of it. E.g., if he does an ad-hominem, don't get lost in proving you're not what he claimed, and much less answer with one. Just point out that it's an ad hominem and thus wholly irrelevant, and move on.
B. Don't use fallacies of your own. Don't turn it into a sophistry contest, because then you're playing on his turf and, as you pointed out, you _will_ lose. Plus, you lose the moral/intellectual high ground if you sink to the same level anyway.
C. Triple check your claim and proofs. Few things lose an argument faster than when your own accusations of fallacies are logically invalid, or it's not the fallacy you claimed.
Basically, yes, it's not easy and it's not necessarily fun. But you _can_ win. Yes, you're not trained in rhetoric, but that's why you don't want to turn it in an empty rhetoric contest. Don't try to demolish it with equally empty rhetoric, dismantle it with logic, and you _can_ win.
Whether you're willing to make that effort just for a random troll, well, that's probably the better question.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Most cable / dsl user have pretty static ips these days. I assume you log the IP of the posters? If yes then write yourself a little shell script or two, one to insert rules into ip tables and store them to a file with a date stamp and one to remove "old" rules called by cron.
Then you just insert rules with your script like
$IPT -I INPUT 1 -s xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx/32 -p tcp -j DROP
Your scripts will clean up for you so you won't end up with 10000s of rules in your runtime tables config and most griefers are going to go away and forget about you after not being able to access your site for a few days.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
no, he's saying the "troll" was actually just pointing out inaccuracies in his simulation which are above and beyond what can be expected from a simulation. Original writer was just butthurt QQing about the fallibility of his software project.
He's a troll. Send him to the killfile, ban list, or whatever your BBS software's equivalent is.
Those using pirated Tinysoft signatures(TM) are a real threat to society and should all be thrown in jail.
I reject your definition of comedy and substitute my own. There is no objective definition of humor.
As soon as you realise that someone is just there for the trolling, don't feed them anymore; just ignore them.....
I saw similar things when I used to read the Linux Advocacy newsgroups years ago. People whose only intention was to trash Linux would find the group and post. Over the years a few of them were caught/found out to be people paid to "shill" by software companies that competed with Linux.
In any event, the irony was that these "shills" actually HELPED Linux. Every time they pointed out some imaginary or exaggerated flaw a number of enthusiasts who knew what they were talking about would post back giving educated rejoinders showing how cool Linux was in that aspect and others. I ( & others ) never would have learned about all of those cool things Linux had if not for the shill stimulating the enthusiasts into talking about those things. In other words the shills provided a segway for free advertising for Linux without the enthusiasts looking like they were bragging.
The "shills" were really "useful idiots"
Use this jerk to advertise how good your application is.
All opinions are not equal...
Bullshit. By the definition of opinion, all opinions are, in fact, equal. They are subjective, and no one opinion can be said to be better than another.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
Yeah, this guy is not so much a troll as he is just lousy at making feature requests.
There is a war going on for your mind.
Hell yeah! Forget banning him, they should hire this guy.
In my house, the requirement of courtesy trumps freedom of speech every time.
I piss off bigots.
I took the site down for a week because readers didn't moderate the troll posts off the forum.
Yes I "punished" everyone. Members just should do their "job" and moderate. I do my job by running and paying for the forum.
The users should in counterpart keep it clean.
This did help, but not in the long run. After going through 3 forced downtimes (upgrades are much easier like that too) I changed method.
I simply excluded the trolls by giving write access only to people who donated via paypal (20 cent is enough, I get nothing, paypal gets all) so I know who they are.
Going through the hassle to get a second paypal account once you are banned is not really so easy than to get another yahoo email.
In effect I'm using paypal as authentication authority.
Troll posts are now at zero. Forum traffic is half. But I have no more headaches.
Donations are above the required minimum for about 60% of all donations.
All opinions are not equal...
Bullshit. By the definition of opinion, all opinions are, in fact, equal. They are subjective, and no one opinion can be said to be better than another.
That's just the worthless sort of opinion I'd expect from a guy who doesn't agree with me.
Replying an essay about how you disliked somebody responding to a quote they enjoy is what's really pathetic attention whoring borne of an insecure ego.
That's "under-mis-estimate" you French troll.
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still.
Could I have handled this better?
Well, you could have posted a link to his IP in the summary, that router should be fried by now.
...because they will first drag you down to their level,
and then beat you there with their experience.
-- Unknown
All of the moderation ideas I've seen in this discussion are valid, but they tend to gloss over the fact that it's simple to create a new account or go somewhere with a different IP address. The nice thing about SA is that you HAVE to pay to be able to post there. People are (slightly) less likely to do dumb shit and get banned, wasting 10 bucks. It's not a perfect system, but the 10 dollar entry fee filters out a fair amount of riff-raff.
People are like slinkies; useless but fun to watch when you push them down the stairs
Just put them on ignore and get on with your life. This goes for both the poster and everyone else complaining about "cyberbullies". The freedom from getting punched in the face that allows people to act like complete asses works both ways, there's not a damn thing they can do if you ignore them.
We had a pretty vicious troll once on a forum I post on. It's a small forum where most of us have been members for several years so we all know each other pretty well; one day this troll showed up and started ripping into us and the forum topic. The mods banned him, but he kept coming back under different names. So we the posters all began treating him as a joke instead of a troll - he'd post some flame and we'd all post back saying things like:
"Ha ha, is that you, [random other poster's name]? You really sound like a troll!"
"LOL! That was good! Do it again!"
"This has got to be a joke; I bet that's [random poster's name] pretending to be a troll!"
"Hey, [random other poster's name], you're arguing with yourself on the forum! That's hilarious!"
After a week or so, he disappeared for good.
No good deed goes unpunished. - Avon, Blake's 7
Without trampling anyone's assumed free speech policy on the board you could move them to a certain forum. This forum would have a somewhat funny name like Repository for Redundant Ranting or such and call it the RRR. Take posts that annoy you and others and move them there. It makes them accessible for anyone to read and also will hopefully make a person who winds up there feel silly or embarrassed.
1. Get high up with the goverment of the person who is trolling your site.
2. Bribe an official to retrieve the address of the person who is trolling.
3. Hire some thugs and let them brake the troll's fingers.
4. ?????
5. Profit
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power lost.
If he really found those comments offensive, hes gonna die after reading the comments here
I thought all of the points brought up in the posts were perfectly valid. The "switching complaints" is simply another set of equally valid problems.
You think this is bad? Try passing FA on the wikipedia some time.
I've seen board trolls before, and that guy was not a troll. He had legitimate crticism of the calculator and supported it with many details. Also, he admitted that he didn't read the instructions and shoud hae, which is a clear sign he wasn't a bully or a troll. Trolls never admit they are wrong. Waste of article, this guy was a typical dumb end user, not an AHole. OP, stop crying about nothing.
Seems like several post here are meant to deal with shadow/perma/silent/ip/hell/girl/etc banning the troll, however from the problem of the edited post, you can add a "This post was edited on..." to show that the post was not the original one (Users usually take posts with the edit flag with a bit of salt, hence that many people add a "EDIT: Spelling" "Edit: added something I forgot to add" at the bottom of the post).
You could also define some threesholds in the diff between the original and the edited post (that however may require a lot of aditional space in the database) so if the diff is past this threeshold (i.e. is not a spelling error or a link added) you could show a "Original post said" brigth yellow rectangle to show the original post as well as the edited post.
Or you could pull a slashdot and forbid any editing at all.
DON'T PANIC.
The first amendment only means that the government cannot infringe your freedom of speech. A site administrator can.
No, you can have informed opinions that are more valuable than uninformed opinions in terms of delivering useful information.
A review of a restaurant by an experienced critic with years of experience tasting fine food and wine, and a history of appreciation by fellow critics and chefs, is more useful to me than the opinion of some wino sitting in a wheely bin outside McDonalds.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Whiny little cuntwaffle, aren't you?
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
I actually RTFA ad the forum and it's not so much a classic case of trolling as a classic case of a forum moderator screaming troll when disagreed with, and posting this on slashdot indicates he has a inappropriate need to 'punish' him.
grow some skin or just grow up period if my child showed this behavior I'd have him at a shrink.
A few years ago I was very active in a game forum and was bullied feverishly by a group of guys. It took a long time for me to realize that the long debates I had with them only made matters worse. At some point right and wrong do not matter at all. There comes a point when the points will all be completely lost and then whats left is just a ridiculous fight where no one wins, but where you will certainly lose.
...
So speak your mind once and maybe clarify a point and then quit. And if you have the power and the person continues to be a menace, then ban him and have him removed without an explanation or apology. WHY? Because you can. Also the board will be better off without trouble makers like that. If you let people like that stick around and continue to troll and make trouble then your board will die and all the good folks will leave.
That game forum I mentioned is dead. Days go by now and maybe 10 new threads will be added. I remember a time when there were 50 new threads every day. Improper moderation, tolerance, immaturity and stupidity killed it. You must purge the bad and protect the good as much as you can. And make sure you know the difference between the two. Part of that is in making sure your mods are mature and aren't "proud" of being mods.
I could go on and on and on about this
There is really only 1 Spanish to English translator for the IPhone. Its 20 bucks and from Ultralingua.
Reviews for it were really poor overall, but there were a few giving it 5 stars so I decided, what's 20 bucks, and gave it a try.
The program is fantastic!
I went back and started reading more of the comments and it became clear that many "reviews" either a) hadn't used the program, b) were just bitching about the cost $20 in hopes of getting the developer to drop the price or c) just doing basic trolling like the reviews saying something like "Obama must like this b/c he wants everyone to learn spanish" 1/5 stars.
I submitted a positive review, but it seems unfair to everyone that the system is used in this manner.
Then base it on IP instead of nick.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Now that the site is Slashdotted, one begins to wonder if a single forum bully was the least of his concerns!
Slashdot. Bringing websites to their knees. With baseball bats.
1) Ban his account and ban future accounts that he creates. If you have some misguided notion that this is a PR issue, post a note about why he's banned and how you expect people to contribute by posting constructive criticism, not attacks.
2) Ignore him. By responding to him, you only give him satisfaction and validation.
3) Isn't this something you learn to deal with as a child? Why is an adult having issues with this that they can't solve themselves?
4) Since when is slashdot a forum for whiney bitches who complain about Jimmy calling him names? Get over it. YOU are giving him the power to upset you.
This doesn't read like a troll thread.
Your coorespondent was perfectly polite, and provided you with good information, and helped you debug your prop warnings.
Uh, other than that he was trying to do a Gas engine model in your electric plane calculator, which he kept ignoring your statement about.
I would say you did a fine job.
Stop crying about comedic oppression when what you defend is completely unrelated to humor.
HELP! HELP!! IM BEING REPRESSED!! COME SEE THE VIOLENCE INHERENT IN THE SYSTEM!
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/34693
I put together an annotated bibliography on Dealing with hate speech, flaming, and trolls for this year's Computers, Freedom, and Privacy conference. It's got tips for dealing with this, experiences, and a bunch of other references. At the bottom, it's got links to a handful of example moderation policies -- including Slashdot's and Boing Boing's, natch, as well as others that aren't as well known. The general principle: decide on the guidelines you want to have, discuss them, and enforce them.
I run two forums. Each has a unique way of dealing with trolls:
Forum A has strict rules, with a three-strike policy. A team of moderators deals with offenders by giving warnings when the rules are broken only after notifying them of the rules (one free pass only). Most trolls stop after the rules have been linked, and for those who persist, we ban them. If they keep coming back after being banned (say, switching IPs), then we'll call the ISP and have a chat with them (I've yet to see a TOS that doesn't include talk about harassment over the internet). This only happens about once every three years; most trolls give up after being banned.
On the opposite end of the scale, there's Forum B. This forum is run by anarchy. The admins only weigh in on spam by deleting it, other than that everything else is game. What you get is a core group of about 100 or so users who can hold arguments rather well, be it with each other, or with trolls. They subject trolls to a trial by fire (most popular being the "Welcome to the internet list"). Trolls that give up never return, while those who survive become fantastic community members.
Obviously you'll have to ultimately find your own balance. There are places where strict rules fall down, and places where anarchy falls down. However, if either is used well, it'll serve you well.
NeoThermic
Use my link above, or to view my server, NeoThermic.com
Most of the troll tools I've seen don't just flag their account as "troll", but set a cookie as well. So any computer they log into their troll account from will have the cookie set in the browser, so they'll still see the "troll" view when logged out, when using another account, etc. Many of the modules also notify the admin when a non-troll account logs in from a "troll" machine, so they can watch out for that account, too.
In addition to the cookie-based troll flagging, IP-based tracking is also common. It's a bit more of a blunt instrument, though, and not as effective.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Which forum do you run again? Oh, and what's your username?
Populus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur...
"Force shits upon Reason's back." - Poor Richard's Almanac
ask moot as he's been DDOS'd for almost 1 week now.
What's better than getting the graphics right in the Penny Arcade game?
Not being fucking retarded.
Populus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur...
"Force shits upon Reason's back." - Poor Richard's Almanac
My first reaction before RTFA was, move bugs to a bug tracker. But now I see what the real problem is.
blackhawk0 isn't a bully or troll, he's just an attention-seeker. (I don't mean that as negative as it sounds. We all are to some extent.) It always takes two. It's up to you to decide whether you want to give him your attention, and if you do, don't blame him for it. If you're being too nice for your own good and get sucked dry by time vampires, it's your problem.
You don't have to tell someone explicitly that you don't have the time/nerve to deal with them right now. Ignoring someone can be just as effective.
It would really help if your forum had more active users, so other people (that maybe even know your software) could take over the discussion. Ever thought about moving your board to a subforum of a bigger community?
I'm not going to watch a 22 minute episode of a flash movie to see how someone fictionally won an internet argument.
Give us the summary, you insensitive clod!
Populus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur...
"Force shits upon Reason's back." - Poor Richard's Almanac
One way to think about this is to remember that thinking of someone who argues with you in a way that abuses logic and reason, or is insulting, is not really a "bully". Using the analogy of "bullying" to what anyone can do to you over the internet is disabling. He's just using words. Use your own without fear. It's not like he's going to reach out of your monitor and grab you around the neck.
Things sure have changed since I was a kid:
"Dad, I'm being bullied at school!"
"What happened son, did he hit you?"
"No."
"Did he knock you down, or give you a wedgie or something?"
"No."
"Well, what did he do to you?"
"He made fun of me!"
"...he made fun of you?"
"Yeah."
"Well, you're not being bullied, son, you're being outsmarted. Think of a clever way to respond and if he really starts bullying you let me know."
Now, while I'm at it, here's another little truth about the internet that you (and modern parents) need to know. There is no such thing as "cyber-sex".
He's clearly spending more time on your calculator than you. You should hand the project over to him.
Help! Help! I'm being oppressed!
It's your blog, maintain it. If some jerk wants to spoil the soup, delete the postings and delete the account. If he wants to bad mouth your blog, let him do it somewhere else. Or, leave the email and don't respond to it. If he can't start a flame war he'll move on. If he doesn't move one, see point 1. Life's too short.
Bully caught on Boing Boing is immediately dressed down by editors.
Winning an argument on the Internet is really hard, because people can trump you with their dickhead status or their real status. If you're trying to form a logical argument, they can make something that sounds cool and is easier to register, and people will accept it. Sometimes they just claim the argument is over, after they make a (flawed) point, leaving you unable to counter their blatant insulting of your intelligence (which usually paints you as wrong even if you're arguing over whether or not 2+2 = 7).
It's stupid.
Substitute Politics for Internet, and you have the reason why Politics suck and the Right always wins.
Tell him if he doesn't like it, to go design his own calculator. If he doesn't go away then, block him or have a moderation system like /.
"All opinions are not equal" only when discussing situations that have a factual basis. Whether or not SUVs are good for the environment, for example, is not a domain where all opinions are equal (or more precisely, equally valid).
But humor is such a domain, because the only qualification for whether something is humor is if someone finds it funny. Humor is 100% subjective, defined as that which someone finds amusing. I suppose you could say that if there's no one who finds something amusing, then it's objectively not funny, but just because there's no one who currently finds it amusing, does not preclude that someone could find it amusing. (And the inverse is true, of course; even if every person who ever lived found something funny, it does not follow that there cannot be someone who does not find it funny.)
The limit is this: If someone finds it funny, it's humor to that person. There is no such thing as objective humor, any more than there is any such thing as objective beauty. Even if every person living finds something funny or beautiful, it is still a subjective characteristic.
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
There's one thing worse than a bad sense of humor... and that's no sense of humor.
You could always find him in R/L, show up on his doorstep and kick his ass in front of his kids. A little dramatic but effective.
When did we rename trolls? Shit they've been around since day one.
who is the trolled? who is the troll?
the "troll" in question?
the website admin for posting this on slashdot?
the hordes of slashdot responders incensed at the existence of this story?
ah, the zen of the troll is a strange zen to understand indeed
where the trolled, and the troll, have fused to become one
ommmmmmmmmmmmmm
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Hey now! Tubgirl isn't illegal.
Over at HeavyInk.com (a comic book ecommerce site with a bunch of Amazon and Facebook like features), a troll stopped by to slag on the service. The response was to figure out who she was and why she was being a troll.
Ouch!
To mangle a quote: justice is a dish best served cold!
more valuable? To whom? If I eat at McDonald's every day because I like the way it tastes, and I can choose between a food critic's review or an average Joe's review, I might think the latter is more valuable and pertinent to my tastes (literally).
Opinions are subjective, and therefore equal.
Honestly, while it may not be funny, what's wrong with people bonding over a shared appreciation for a joke/movie/book/what not? You don't like it, skip over the posts.
Higher Logics: where programming meets science.
Da! And in Mother Russia we delete entire people!
Congratulations on completely missing the point.
He is not defining a whitelist of humor wherein only certain jokes are permitted. He is attempting to describe a single item from what should be a universal comedic blacklist.
Clever references are funny. Continuing the reference beyond its relevant portion is a shallowly vain tactic in which one merely attempts to demonstrate that he also gets the joke and is thus deserving of being held in social esteem at least as high as the original maker of the joke.
It's not humor. It's not a joke. It's pathetic attention whoring borne of an insecure ego, and your getting so defensive at it getting the derision it deserves leads me to believe you're part of the problem.
Stop crying about comedic oppression when what you defend is completely unrelated to humor.
You have never watched Family Guy, have you?
Yes, beating a dead horse is pretty stupid. But after awhile, it becomes fairly funny as people start to wonder why this dead horse is being beaten. Perhaps an irrational fear of horses?
Either way, Family Guy is almost the epitome of beating a dead horse to death to get a laugh. They work on the principle of 3s and 7s... for three times, it's funny, then it's not funny again until you start doing it 7 or more times.
Why did the chicken cross the road? To get to the other side.
Why did the chicken cross the road? It was stapled to the lizard.
Why did the chicken cross the road? To visit its family
(joke gets old here)
Why did the chicken cross the road? To say hello to her friend.
Why did the chicken cross the road? To bring a casserole to the new neighbor.
Why did the chicken cross the road? To take its eggs to their daddy for visitation.
(joke gets funny here again)
Why did the chicken cross the road? Because gravity was sheered inexplicably parallel to the plane of the earth.
Why did the chicken cross the road? It really had nothing better to do
Why did the chicken cross the road? To beat the dead horse.
WARNING! This girl exceeds the MAXIMUM SAFE standards established by the FDA for BRATTINESS
the fellow is getting gratification out of taunting you . . . I first encountered this on the mp3.com bulletin boards way back in the day. Here on slashdot I later learned it was a full on twisted art form! I recommend a moderation system :)
Listen to Reality!
Sounds like the poster caught himself in a drama triangle.
If your bully did not reason themselves into their position, then there is little use in trying to reason them out of it.
I had this problem on a forum several times in the past. I modified the software to make my service slow or fail at random points for certain user names. I could enter a value between 1 and 10 to indicate how "broken" the system was. The idea was not to ban the user as they would only create a new account. Instead, I made the system more frustrating to use. Sometimes it would be a bit slow serving pages. Other times it would display a page indicating that there was a database error after a post was submitted. You can get creative, but be sure to have the system work most of the time. Eventually the troll will give up when they can't post for an hour or two because of a "500 Internal Server Error" or some other problem.
I can't take credit for the idea though. Philip Greenspun wrote about this about a decade ago in one of his web books.
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
By the definition of opinion, all opinions are, in fact, equal. They are subjective, and no one opinion can be said to be better than another.
The problem is that we're arguing semantics, not logic. Common usage today is that "opinion" means "I am going to believe this because I want to, regardless of supporting evidence." This is not the way you are using it--you're being a strict interpretist (and for the record, I agree with your usage of the term) by assuming that all others in this thread mean "opinion" as "there is conflicting evidence and I fall on a particular side of the argument." The problem with this is that someone could amble along and say "my opinion that the earth orbits the moon and cats are larger than elephants." In common usage, this is an "opinion". In your usage it is not. This is why we run into problems such as people having the "opinion" that Obama is Muslim. Any opinion that flies in the face of overwhelming, observable, testable, contrary proofs ceases being an opinion and becomes a simple untruth. As such, it no longer holds any weight vs. an opinion (let alone a tautology.) It's a pity that correct usage of the word and the concepts it engenders are no longer taught in school.
"We can categorically state we have not released man-eating badgers into the area." - UK military spokesman, July 2007
And here kids, we have someone who doesn't comprehend the difference between "fact" and "opinion".
A slapstick joke, done well, is funny. 10 predicatable slapstick jokes in a row is childish and stupid. Thus, movies made this way are childish and stupid. There are literally hundreds of quite popular movies made just this way, that people apparently find very funny.
Why?
Because what I just stated is my OPINION. What you just stated is your opinion. We needn't delve into the reasons why you take your own opinion as fact, beyond the obvious conclusions anyone can draw...
That said, I agree with your opinion. Unfortunately, that doesn't make it fact.
Just another ignorant American.
LoL, it's just funny to me that you call them 'bullies'.
My forum is invite only. You can register but I won't approve the account unless someone on the inside vouches for you and this works because I intend to keep the community small.
:P
I assume you want more people to come so I would suggest ignoring the idiots and banning them. As a troll, I know that if you give them attention they'll just keep at it.
> After I politely point out that he's mistaken and should have looked at the
> documentation before posting, he changes the subject and bad mouths a different 'flaw.'
Like me, you may have a problem in always thinking people are behaving honestly.
Go look at the (open) reviews for AdAware and similar legit products on Download.com. They're clogged with spammed bad reviews by what are presumably "competitors" who create trojan loader crap.
This buffoonery even copies and pastes the came bitches into the reviews of most products of the same type.
And I wouldn't put it above legit companies to try that tactic, too. After all, it's been a few years since we learned they do things like pay bloggers, if not outright hire or make up completely fake bloggers, to tout their products, as well as sit in chat rooms and casually tout this or that product or movie. Alcohol companies pay gorgeous models to stand around in hep clubs drinking their product. Clothing and jewelry companies give expensive stuff to stars in the hopes they'll be seen wearing it on TMZ or in People, or by the Grace of God, on Jay Leno.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Did anyone actually RTFA? Oh wait, what am I saying......this is Slashdot. Foolish me.
If you would have read the fucking posts in question, you would have seen that rather than "bullying", they appeared to be legitimate reports about the inadequacies of the Calculator in question. The website owner even thanks the purported "bully" numerous times for calling attention to errors or omissions that he subsequently fixed.
...and tell him that if he doesn't like it, he should just write his own.
what are trolls?
Unless the troll has a static IP, this does not look like the the best way to go. May be letting the trolls themselves and new users see the troll posts will prevent the trolls from learning that they have been banned by creating a new account.
Or may be show troll posts only to users with "neutral" or "negative" karma, or with fewer than x posts, or an account created less than some y time ago, etc.
Are you retarded? Read what you just linked.
Just replying with further quotes does not make it a "running gag".
If you're a faggot who becomes intimidated by writing more than a paragraph, perhaps.
What occurred last night was unfortunate. It was late, I was tired, excuses excuses.
My initial intent was not to attempt to bully others with my opinions on humor, but more to explain to the seemingly willfully ignorant why they might get funny looks from others in real life social situations after they needlessly quote more material after a reference has been made.
It was a well-intentioned attempt at education turned adversarial after my first post because Valdrax seems intent on proving the hilarity of what has been previously debated, where the AC whose flag I took up was initially himself trying to simply explain others' viewpoints on humor and why they conflict with some 'nerdier' tendencies.
...to provide trolls with a place to engage in their behaviour.
You are the site operator: You get to decide what's acceptable and what isn't.
There will be some (usually the trolls themselves) who will claim you're violating their 1st amendment rights. You're not. The 1st amendment to the US Constitution has to do with *public* spaces. A web site you host or manage is like a room in your house, and you have the right to decide who comes through the front door.
So while I would first advocate the "thanks for your feedback" approach, if more restrictive measures are needed, such as mandatory registration with validation of personal details/e-mail address, paid access, or the institution of filtering to prevent the trolls from continuing, that's YOUR decision and your decision ALONE to make.
Insanity is a gradual process; don't rush it.
"Poor Hareton was squalling and kicking in his father's arms with all his might, and redoubled his yells when he carried him up-stairs and lifted him over the banister. I cried out that he would frighten the child into fits, and ran to rescue him. As I reached them, Hindley leant forward on the rails to listen to a noise below; almost forgetting what he had in his hands. 'Who is that?' he asked, hearing some one approaching the stairs'-foot. I leant forward also, for the purpose of signing to Heathcliff, whose step I recognised, not to come further; and, at the instant when my eye quitted Hareton, he gave a sudden spring, delivered himself from the careless grasp that held him, and fell. There was scarcely time to experience a thrill of horror before we saw that the little wretch was safe. Heathcliff arrived underneath just at the critical moment; by a natural impulse he arrested his descent, and setting him on his feet, looked up to discover the author of the accident. A miser who has parted with a lucky lottery ticket for five shillings, and finds next day he has lost in the bargain five thousand pounds, could not show a blanker countenance than he did on beholding the figure of Mr. Earnshaw above. It expressed, plainer than words could do, the intensest anguish at having made himself the instrument of thwarting his own revenge. Had it been dark, I daresay he would have tried to remedy the mistake by smashing Hareton's skull on the steps; but, we witnessed his salvation; and I was presently below with my precious charge pressed to my heart. Hindley descended more leisurely, sobered and abashed."
Posts, MyBio or Sig, may contain satire, sarcasm, bolded nouns be sardonic or even witty & be Church of SD
Could there be a method to insert lots of typos into the troll post? Perhaps some Freudian slips as well? Added bonus: The troll will begin to question his sanity.
Ni.
Yes, beating a dead horse is pretty stupid.
This isn't about beating a dead horse, or running gags as somebody else claimed.
When somebody quotes a relevant line from a film, they are making a connection between one thing and another. Depending on the circumstances, this can be funny. It's not quoting a film itself that's funny, it's making the connection between the two things.
When somebody else sees a quote and responds with the next line, they are doing something entirely different. They are recognising a quote and jumping on the bandwagon. It's like a Pavlovian response, entirely devoid of any intelligence or humour.
Sure, running gags can be funny. But recognising a quote and saying the next line isn't a running gag.
It was a well-intentioned attempt at education turned adversarial after my first post because Valdrax seems intent on proving the hilarity of what has been previously debated where the AC whose flag I took up was initially himself trying to simply explain others' viewpoints on humor and why they conflict with some 'nerdier' tendencies.
It goes to show again that you missed my point. After all, I did support modding down such comments as redundant and did support one's right to boo humor your don't like. I never said that I personally found senseless movie quoting funny (especially in a very out of context situation, like above).
My actual points were that (1) there is no objective measure of humor, so attempts to universally declare something as "not funny" are nothing but an arrogant attempt to declare your own subjective values as universal truths (i.e. that your tastes are always superior), and (2) while the AC thought that quoting movie lines was pathetic and embarrassing because of how "normal" people react to it, I'm of the opinion that it's even more pathetic to restrain your sense of humor for fear of not fitting in or being "cool." If that's the kind of thing you find funny, then let your freak flag fly, and let peer pressure be damned.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
When dealing with someone who is obviously an idiot, instead of wasting time trying to politely convince them that they are an idiot. My one and only reply "if" I choose to dignify their post with a response is as follows: *Yawns* Replace user press the "any" key. Any further response from them goes unanswered.
Just like momma always said when your younger siblings were bothering you, and just like Rule 14 states, you should ignore these idiots. They only want attention and will eventually go away if ignored. Other forum users should be smart enough to ignore them as well.
Yes, beating a dead horse is pretty stupid.
This isn't about beating a dead horse, or running gags as somebody else claimed.
When somebody quotes a relevant line from a film, they are making a connection between one thing and another. Depending on the circumstances, this can be funny. It's not quoting a film itself that's funny, it's making the connection between the two things.
When somebody else sees a quote and responds with the next line, they are doing something entirely different. They are recognising a quote and jumping on the bandwagon. It's like a Pavlovian response, entirely devoid of any intelligence or humour.
Sure, running gags can be funny. But recognising a quote and saying the next line isn't a running gag.
The mods have spoken however... overwealmingly they believe that it was funny. So, you're in the unfunny minority. My suggestion to you, is: "stop over-analyzing funny"
WARNING! This girl exceeds the MAXIMUM SAFE standards established by the FDA for BRATTINESS
It's been a while since I've seen Ask Slashdot used so effectively.