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
Your best bet is to just relax. Remember, when you argue with an idiot on the internet, two idiots are arguing.
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.
ban, done. you really needed to ask slashdot about this nonsense?
Better yet, does Slashdot need to post this nonsense?
On the Oregon Cost born and raised, On the beach is where I spent most of my days
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.
Redirect his browser to an illegal porn site (with an IP-specific refresh tag), then call the FBI. BAM!
Obama likes poor people so much, he wants to make more of them.
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.
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.
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.
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)
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.
Hence troll problem fixed!
A bit of a weird way to go about it, but each to their own...
The Mothership
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..
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
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?
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
So.... how long did it take before you banned yourself?
However, dicks stand out in a crowd, and it's obvious when a repeat offender comes back. Simply rinse and repeat. Few clicks, done.
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.
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...
I'm glad they did, I just learned about 'shadowbanning'
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.
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.
Just let him be... keep arguing and soon you will be like this guy
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/myl/llog/duty_calls.png
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."
It's your forum. Delete his crap and move on.
Judging from his first few comments, he's not really right -- he's taking a tool designed for planes using electric motors, trying to make it work for planes using internal combustion engines, then complaining that it won't work, and thus sucks. He also admits that he didn't read the tutorials, expecting them to be worthless. It's like answering an ad for a used car, driving it into the water, then complaining that it was a really crappy boat.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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...
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").
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.
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,
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)
The phone rings at FBI headquarters. "Hello?" "I'm calling to report my neighbor. He is hiding marijuana inside his firewood." "Thank you very much for the call, sir." The next day, FBI agents descend on the neighbor's house. They search the shed where the firewood is kept. Using axes, they bust open every piece of wood, but find no marijuana. They swear at the neighbors and leave. The phone rings ~ it's the neighbors house. Hey, Adrian, did the FBI come?" "Yep." "Did they chop your firewood?" "Yep." "Great, now it's your turn to call. I need my garden plowed."
The magical number is: 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
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.
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").
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.
"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
Now the troll can point his friends to Slashdot and say "that article's about me!"
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.
I reject your definition of comedy and substitute my own. There is no objective definition of humor.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.