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Disarm Internet Trolls, Gently
Shlomi Fish writes "The best way to react to people trolling on Internet forums is not to feed them, right? Wrong! 'Don't feed the trolls' is also usually ineffective. Luckily, however, there is more effective approach, inspired by the book Feeling Good by David D. Burns."
Sounds pretty gay.
Just don't respond, add them to your ignore list and do something more productive.
"The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes" - Winston Churchill
That anus is impressively enlarged. Thank you for sharing it with us. What made you first think about posting it on slashdot?
You suck!...
Kinda...
Eh, actually you're not so bad...
In fact you're kinda cute...
Wanna go out tomorrow night?...
Nervous?.. Yeah, a little
First time?... No, I've been nervous lots of times
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
I LIKE to feed the trolls!
http://www.ehow.com/how_2064125_become-internet-troll.html
The above URI has some helpful hints for noobs who might want to get into trolling
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
The assumption is that a troll has mood disorder so cognitive therapy works.
1. That assumption may be wrong. Some trolls genuinely believe that they are right and will troll so that they can express their righteous beliefs. Reasoning with them is pointless because they do not listen to the voice of reason. They believe in something religiously and will troll for a chance to proselytize. So they are not trolling for flames, they are trolling for listeners.
2. Even if it is right, life is to short. Dealing with a mood disorder through cognitive therapy, psychoanalysis or any other similar technique requires the patience of a python and all the time in the world. Most of us have none of that.
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
I would turn around and reply that maybe he knows a lot of black men at a very personal and intimate level, and would seem to be quite the expert at the social bearings of around them.
Angela Martin: [to Phyllis] "Lunch Party"? It's supposed to say "Launch Party." What's wrong with you?
Phyllis Lapin: [it cuts to a talking head segment] Angela has been worse than usual lately, and we have a party to throw, so I googled "how to deal with difficult people." And I got all of this.
[she holds up a few sheets of paper with information]
Phyllis Lapin: So we're gonna try out some new things today.
Phyllis Lapin: [it cuts back to the office] How do you feel about the fact that the banner says "Lunch"?
Angela Martin: I feel angry. Angry at you. Angry at you for doing something stupid. Angry at me for believing you could do something not stupid.
Phyllis Lapin: [Phyllis looks down at the sheets of paper] I'm so sorry to hear that. That must be awful.
Angela Martin: It is awful. You've made this day awful.
... develop a strong sense of self-worth & recognise that someone throwing profanities at you who has never met you is entirely unimportant.
Get over that, then you can have fun baiting them, reeling them in, playing with them a while, then throwing them back when you're bored.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
Winner!
One mans troll is another mans hero. All to many times I hear the cry of "troll" and sure enough out come the torches, pitch forks and mod -1 Troll, well before anyone has properly read and moderated the post, only to have someone with mod points save the comment from obscurity. Care must be taken to not completely silence discussion. BTW what ever happend to my mod points?
Please mod me 1 or troll. It's where the truth is these days, even on Slashdot. Beware the power of moderators everywh
First, contrary to TFA, this has zero to do with cognitive behavioral therapy.
Second, it won't work with an experienced troll. Either don't feed them, or feed them a brick to the face. But if they're that experienced, both approaches will fail.
Third, recognize that there are "white hat" and "black hat" trolls.
Fourth, one person's troll or flamebait is another person's insightful.
Fifth, take it for what it is - whether it's the use of rhetoric as a debating artifice, a way to expose stupid arguments for what they are (because it's easier to troll an idiot than it is to educate them), or just another form of entertainment.
Sixth, people who go nuts over YHBT YFI HAND are the real trollbait.
The author seems to be using "troll" as a term for "someone posting in an inflammatory manner," but I thought "troll" specifically referred to posters doing it to get a rise out of people. Responding in a reasonable manner isn't going to help if the other party isn't interested in taking the conversation seriously.
The approach he gives is good for preventing disagreements from turning into flamewars, but it is worthless and even counterproductive for dealing with real trolls. Reading the article he seems unaware of the fact that people who troll do it simply to get a rise out of people. Any response (even a calm boring one) just gives them another opportunity to respond, which increases the chance that someone else will eventually bite the bait.
If someone really is trolling, then ignoring them is the best thing to do. Having moderation systems to keep them out-of-sight out-of-mind will help with people who can't control the urge to feed the trolls.
Finally, while it is sometimes hard to tell the difference between a troll and and an angry rant, I don't have any problem treating them the same in general forums. When talking with people that you will see again (like work, friends, family, or development mailing lists) and you know they genuinely disagree with you then it is worthwhile to keep the peace and follow the suggestions here. But on a random discussion forum, "if you can't be civil you will be ignored" is good policy IMHO.
That's the best way to go. Playing psychological games with an idiot is just a waste of time.
Open Source Network Inventory for the masses! Kuwaiba
I have just poured hot grits down my pants
1. What do you mean by feeding the trolls? I'm sure you don't really want them to starve to death.
2. I agree with you that it is difficult to have to put up with trolls. I hope, however, that the inner-tubes are big enough for everyone; maybe we can work together to find a nice bridge for the trolls to live under. It may seem a bit harsh, but if we fed them a few goats now and again, maybe they will feel better about themselves and move on to greener pastures.
3. If we can keep the trolls from offending us, then cyber-area can benefit from the diversity. I saw a documentary once where even an Ogre - I know they are different from trolls, but they share some common disagreeable characteristics - befriended a donkey, and they seemed to have a genuinely witty banter and joie de vivre. I read in the newspaper that the Ogre recently even married; so there is some possibility we can live together.
yeah, I guess it kinda works.
It's so feature-filled that I can do anything!
Anything at all. The only limit is yourself.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Your first sentence gives it away. Deliberately inflammatory, likely to provoke a response -- thus, troll. In fact, three out of your four paragraphs are dedicated to insulting people you disagree with -- only one paragraph might have a point that's not inherently trollish.
If what you say is both logical and factual, surely you can provide some evidence for it, right? Shouldn't be too hard, if it's "all over" the Internet.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Bah, let the slut clean it up with her mouth!
The definition of "troll" has changed. It used to be, back in the good old USENET days, a troll was someone who intentionally took an outrageous viewpoint, purely to generate responses and enjoy the excitement of being in the center of attention.
Now, "troll" is anyone who disagrees. I've seen some pretty bad abuses on other forums, where someone advances a reasonable idea that doesn't dovetail with the way the group prefers to perceive reality, and is instantly labeled a troll and banned. The trend is self-reinforcing over time. Result: groupthink. The meaning of "normal" gets distorted as the goalposts move farther and farther away from the world outside the forum. This is especially jarring when these folks move out to a mainstream forum like Slashdot and nobody shares their preconceptions.
You can see it in the linked article, the author's examples such as "You are on a Vim channel" - who the F spends time on a "Vim channel"? Himself and his tiny group, I'm sure. Jeez, the guy bought and is reading a self-help book called "Feeling Good"...obviously he has major life problems that the rest of us consider lameass Stuart Smalley territory "I deserve good things. I am entitled to my share of happiness. I refuse to beat myself up. I am attractive person. I am fun to be with." OMG TROLL -1
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Trolls have been around for as long as individuals have been communicating online. From what I understand, they're essentially lonely, attention seeking people. Even if you do engage one in dialog, what then? All you're doing is feeding their addiction. There are just too many of them to warrant trying to help them all (and trying that may point to bugs in your own personality, too)
No, the best course is to killfile them or use whatever options your forum implementation has to achieve the same results. You don't raise your signal to noise ratio by trying to negotiate with the noise, you just filter it out and try to make sense of what remains.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
"So what" is the best method. troll expects strong reaction. when people react in that way .... well, try it.
Read radical news here
at the shoulder. Extra points for getting some collarbone as well.
GStreamer - The only way to stream!
Then proceed to beat them to death with said arms.
I find it particularly therapeutic and cathartic.. for me, that is. The trolls don't generally survive the encounter. :)
-SS "Teach the ignorant, care for the dumb, and punish the stupid."
Never argue with idiots. Apart from the risk that onlookers won't be able to tell which of you is the idiot, they drag you down to their own level and beat you with their superior experience. (Plus, the internet never forgets: ref. onlookers)
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
You've just fallen victim to John Gabriel's Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Why not isolate the trolls by showing their comments only to themselves, but not to other readers.
But Hitler was gay... I mean, just look at that get up...
He was a rather clueless hipster.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
That author had not counted with Slashdot... The comments here are already lsdhfipuhdfpibf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll_(Internet)
when you respond, you did exactly what the troll wanted you to do.
Anonymous?
What about someone whose sole intention is to troll?
What about tag team trolling?
Or you could set it on fire with your mind.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
LOL, this is appears to be a story that was posted in thoughtful hindsight after being thoroughly trolled.
Sir
Kindly divest yourself of all regalia and impel yourself into a large, land-locked body of fresh water that exists in your vicinity.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
Does anybody even use PERL anymore? It seems like kind of a scarecrow argument. I think /. used to use it back in the day, but it's much better since they switched to Javascript.
... also, I can kill you with my brain.
Second, getting a conversation off-topic doesn't necessarily kill a thread. Sometimes those off-topic threads are more interesting than the subject that spawned them, or lead to more insights.
Third, not all trolling is done to spark fighting and stupid behavior - it can be used to expose that same stupid behavior. Consider how effective trolling neo-cons is compared to trying to "reason" with them. Ditto trolling fundies who insist on imposing their religious beliefs on others by banning same-sex marrage, abortion, and attacking gays, lesbians, atheists, etc.
Fourth, such debate is not useless. It most forcefully engages the opposite party in defending their stance, rather than just preaching to the faithful.
Good trolling is an art form. It can also be socially constructive, by being socially disruptive.
I'm sure I'm ready to listen to a yellow jacket on the subject of troll diminishment. This house is a yellow jacket free zone.
Sometimes trolls inspire useful thinking, if you haven't heard it a dozen times already. You can learn a lot about Platonic solids from the contemplation of square pegs and round holes.
I tend to respond with a humorous paragraph-long extrapolation of troll's cognitive bias (ignoring the person behind the idea promulgated), followed immediately with several paragraphs making a useful on-topic contribution, or an extended riff on lateral associations.
Perhaps I copied my formula from Mozart during his appreciation of Salieri's gift composition.
On the other hand, There's nothing wrong with an old-fashioned traditional shunnin'.
So.... the solution to a "troll" is to act like an Eliza program?
At this point we beat him up and took a dump on his face.
So when did you realize you enjoy exposing your ass to other men?
There. How's that?
The super-executive summary for this post is: "On the Internet, don't be right - be smart."
Like the two are mutually exclusive?
How dumb can you be?
The article is troll-bait.
I used to post on a number of forums regarding audio equipment. I'd say about 50% of the people were open minded and logical, 40% were set in their ways and would take light offense if you disagreed, but they had good things to say often and 10% were out to completely destroy everyone's opinion -- trolls. I make a living in audio and consider myself an expert in the field, in the same way an experienced high level mechanical engineer might, and I have a lot of practical experience to back it up. Even with well thought out explanations, and with cases where there were irrefutable answers to questions, those 10% of people would inevitably shout incorrect answers or make personal attacks and derail everything. It was just a question of the loudest and most frequent yeller. Have you seen the movie Idiocracy where the main character is trying to convince the government that plants need water, not Brawndo? Exactly like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Vw2CrY9Igs
I stopped posting on all these forums because it's just not worth it. Those people have way more free time than any productive person. It's a real shame though, because when people like me are driven away, the majority of people who just want an honest answer are getting completely screwed by these yahoos. There's no accountability so even if you call them on an argument, they just shut up until the next post a day later. Their energy to cause shit seems to be endless.
Meh: You spend enough time reading message boards and trolls quickly become background noise. Maybe back in the early 90's a troll might have gotten a rise out of me, but by now I've read every ad hominem attack, meaningless rant, cheap shot, and overly provocative post that could possibly be authored. Frankly, if you really want to shock me or just really piss me off, present a truly cogent, fact based, and utterly logical point of view. It's the stuff that I can't easily dismiss as the ravings of an ass-hat that gets under my skin.
There is no security when liberty is sacrificed.
You want to know what I miss? (shut up, of course you do!) I miss when /. had really good trolls. Remember them? The ones that took pride in their trolling? The ones that would spend all day cooking up offensive ASCII art or writing a shit eater or ass rape troll that like a fine novel didn't give away its true intention until nearly the end?
Man we used to have some damned fine trolling here, not the lame "Nigger nigger faggot faggot" crap spewed from Halo fratboys on 4chan and Digg, no trolls that were PROUD to be trolls and took pride in their work. Even our crazies were a cut above the rest, folks like Twitter that could spin a dozen sockpuppets into one giant conspiracy fueled fantasy around MSFT and the Illuminati. Now THAT was some damned fine trolling!
Sadly now our trolls are as cheap and badly made as a Chinese knockoff iPod, just no pride in the work anymore. Even our crazies have lost their flair,like MichaelK with his endless copies of his name with a number after it just so he can type "pathetic" and have it not at -1, or the HOSTS guy that capitalizes every other word like that makes his crazy more powerful or something, just no subtlety or finesse at all.
I'm sure the great trolls of the past are looking down from under their bridge in the sky and hanging their heads in shame. Oh and of course trying to shake their dicks at us, but unlike the lousy trolls of today they have a chorus line going with all the wieners having tassels and spinning in time like the pasties on a Vegas showgirl. Its all in the presentation you see, something the trolls of today just don't get. Personally I blame reality programming and MTV.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Thank you for your comment. How do you feel about pussy? Does pussy make you feel uncomfortable? Have you had a bad experience with pussy?
Perhaps we can suggest some alternatives to pussy that you would enjoy more.
"...stupid git."
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
What you're talking about isn't trolling. It's contradicting. Trolling is intentionally stirring the pot.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Am I the first to notice that the owner of the blog and author of the blog post that was linked to is the same person who made the submission to Slashdot?
Sent from my iPhone
to moderate. There isn't enough -1 troll to go around.
The US government have made it clear that we have no inalienable rights; any we do not defend vigorously will be taken.
The linked-to article was written by one Schlomi Fish, who is a kind of programming language troll.
I wrote a very nice Lisp program once upon a time, and Fish wrote a critique one of whose main points is that I should have written it in a different programming language, quote:
If Meta-CVS' author wishes to make it more popular, I strongly advise him to re-implement it in C, Perl, Python or something more standard.
So we can take this new article to be a kind of insider's guide to trolling, I suppose. :)
What a fucking arrogant asshole, "strongly advising" his superior.
The fact that the person came into a Python IRC channel and started ripping on python, by definition would not be a troll. They are argumentative, irritating, and most probably drunk... but not a troll. A Troll is secretive, hiding under a bridge, then springs out on you. I'm not sure who decided that anyone they find irritating on the internet is a Troll, but it needs to stop. Trolling is an Art-form... a very irritating, often insulting, art-form. Someone that just yells "Your favorite band sucks!" is not a troll, they're just a jerk.
I don't get how a headless camel is relevant to the article.
You can't disarm trolls, the whole point is to derail a conversation and/or waste your time. Trying to politely take the conversation in the direction a troll wants only sets him up for better trolling. Do try though, that will make for some truly EPIC trolls for me to amuse myself with [| execute].
There are all forms of criticism, good, bad, and ugly and then there are direct attacks at the coherency of online discussion for malice or amusement. ...
Did Slashdot just get trolled?
http://www.kylheku.com/~kaz/mcvs-criticisms.html
My understanding of a troll does not include them being earnest about their position. A "political / religious hater" troll is not a true troll, just a jerk, rather attached to their position and honest about it.
TFA helps with an angry rant by an otherwise normal person, not with an intentional troll.
I would add the opposite of the troll to the problem list, the bully:
You voice dissent in a fan boy environment, and two low ranking members will immediately attack you to gain social status. Sometimes a high ranking member with self confidence issue will pitch in to make an example.
Politeness doesn't really help you, it would only be seen as defensiveness. The only thing that works is if someone else actively intervenes.
http://xkcd.com/481/
Kudos to Slashdot for their moderation system, that allows trolls to be modded out of sight for most users.
Conversely, an unrepentant troll can post something insightful (by accident, no doubt) and it can be modded up to be seen by most users.
Salon.com letters section suffers from severe trollery, hence the (shameless plug follows:) Salon KillFile (http://salon.maow.net), which blocks spammers by their web site names, regardless of this week's user names. It also bans trolls by name with a single button click, and highlights a user's favourite authors with a click of a button. Finally, it also automatically highlights Salon staff letters.
Anyway, it's not as good as a moderation system, but Salon is too stupid/lazy/uncaring to bother upgrading their comment system, so users had to make their own GreaseMonkey script to do it for them.
Again, kudos to Slashdot!
http://www.bullies2buddies.com/How-to-Stop-Being-Teased-and-Bullied-Without-Really-Trying
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
To use his example, here's how a real troll works:
"Perl rocks my socks and Python sucks balls, LOL. Python programmers are incompetent imbecile losers, ROTFL"
"Why do you feel that Python is so bad? What do you find wrong with it?"
"Python sucks because you're stupid and suck donkey dick."
"Yes, Perl is a nice language, and I agree that Python has its downsides and/or trade-offs in comparison to Perl."
"Python sucks because you're stupid and suck donkey dick."
"It's OK to prefer Perl, we'll still accept you here."
"Python sucks because you're stupid and suck donkey dick."
A real troll isn't invested in what he (and it almost always is a he) says. His sole goal is to piss you off. To provoke a response. Any response. Any tactic is acceptable, so long as it provokes a response.
I've seen the equivalent to this:
"Perl rocks my socks and Python sucks balls, LOL. Python programmers are incompetent imbecile losers, ROTFL"
"I agree. Python sucks."
"Python rocks my socks and Perl sucks balls, LOL. Python programmers are incompetent imbecile losers, ROTFL"
I've done that, in fact, and not from the victim's end of it. I once started a good sized flamewar by calling myself stupid. I've had people argue with Pee Wee Herman quotes for weeks at a time. My most glorious achievement had a guy arguing with "I know you are, but what am I" and completely blank replies in rec.arts.sf.written for eight months. That particular food product (I do like to play with my food, why do you ask?) reminded me a lot of this clown.
Here's my advice, from years of amusing myself by trolling usenet:
1) You cannot win. Ever. No matter what. The only way to not lose is to not play.
2) You cannot stop a troll. Ever. No matter what. You cannot shame him in to silence. You cannot threaten him in to silence. You cannot keep him from access, because the days of news admins who give a shit are long gone (and even when they did, they were more sympathetic to the trolls than people stupid enough to argue with them). The only way to not lose is to not play.
3) If you care, you have already played, and therefore you have already lost. The only way to not lose is to not play.
4) It doesn't matter. It really doesn't. No troll has ever convinced anybody of anything. No one will ever hate Python because some troll said it sucked. The only possible effect of engaging a troll, at all, ever, is to make yourself look stupid to everyone who doesn't, including people who agree with you. The only way to not lose is to not play.
5) The only response that isn't stupid and insane is, in fact, to not feed the troll. Ignore them. If you don't have the willpower to simply not read their drivel, killfile them, block them, whatever. Do the same with anyone who responds to them. The only way to not lose is to not play.
And in case I haven't mentioned it:
The only way to not lose is to not play.
"Arguing on the internet is like competing in the Special Olympics. You might win, but you're retarded."
The idea of the article seems to be that "trolls" always are people that can be reasoned with. A few years back I used to moderate on a casual all-purpose help forum, where we got our fair share of trolls. The trolling was everything from fake complaints/problems, like fatal-butt-illness and wanting to commit suicide to posting pictures of gay sex (seems like a very popular subject for trolls) and mutilated corpses. Now THAT is trolling... and how do you talk those people down?
Ok, I agree that some of the trolls could have been converted, but that would mean we would have to spend 57 hours a day talking to people without real problems, except for a major brain dysfunction (for which we lacked the proper credentials to diagnose and treat). If someone trolled, we banned or wiped the account, if they came back on a new account we blocked the IP (cut a few schools off once in a while.. goodtimes), if they came back using a proxy site, we banned that IP. Usually they would give up within 10 minutes. Ban, wipe and block... sounds like something out of Karate Kid :D
Slashdot is dead
This should be rated up xD
Can you imagine the equivalent chat face to face, perhaps in a bar?
Troll: "Your mother is a slut!!"
Nerd: "I agree she is rather free with her morals, but what makes you think so?"
Troll: "more aggressively because I like ****ing her" & punches...
Nerd: "mphmph" (mouth blocked by fist)
In the real world, we pay big men in black clothing to help such "trolls" leave licensed premises.
Perhaps its just because I mostly associate with gamers, but really, +b http://www.quakenet.org/faq/faq.php?c=52&f=62#62 was invented for trolls.
Any REAL troll does not succumb to such methods. While arguing with an anarchocapitalistfag on an anonops chan, no amount of gentle logic does anything, no discussion will be had at all, no convincing, just "I'm right because [insert preposterous bullshit here]"
Where is the mod rating for "scary"? Also,
Trolls are a waste of time; not only for the experienced but they can also misguide the newer members of a community. Take Eve Online, a newer member has a lot of questions since there is so many elements and attributes to modules, ships and physics mechanics. A troll can easily give a newer member some bad advice to some one who has a question and 100 other newer members can silently read it and have the same misunderstanding being propagated by the troll.
That's a lot of damage to let sit and fester. The (ineffective) alternative is to gently argue your way and show everyone the errors of the trolls way. The reason it is ineffective is your wasting time and space and giving the floor to the troll instead of answering legitimate questions.
Beware of those who profit off the docile and persecute the unbelievers.
A slashdotted LJ entry. Slow news day?
I know you are, but what am I?
There's logic to the use of the "troll" metaphor. A rant is not trolling. Angry disagreement is not trolling. Deliberate attempts to disrupt an online forum are trolling. A responsible forum moderator has the responsibility to identify trolls and deal with them firmly, decisively, and as quickly as possible.
The most common form of trolling I have seen is a bigoted comment, often "justified" with insane troll logic. Arguing with such logic is useless, and so is trying to dissuade the commenter from bigotry.
Most importantly, the effect of such a troll is to silence or drive off members of an online community. Remember that in general, only a minority of participants in an online forum are active participants. If members of a group that has a history of victimization by bigotry see bigots going unchallenged or weakly challenged, they're likely to be discouraged from participation. Active participants will become passive, and passive participants will depart. This can kill an online community, and doing so is often a troll's intent. It is a moderator's responsibility to nurture an online community; therefore it is a moderator's responsibility to deal with trolls firmly.
A troll is not interested in having a reasoned discussion, and when offered reasonable arguments, will continue or escalate the trolling. This amplifies the effect of the trolling, and leads to a forum thread being dominated by the argument around the troll: this is the reason why the conventional advice is to refrain from feeding the troll. That's not enough, however: trolls must be eliminated.
There are two options for dealing with trolls: banning them, and humiliating them. Banning is the straightforward option, and usually the best choice, as it's the cleanest break. Humiliation is more chancy, but it has a few advantages: it makes it clear that a troll has been confronted, and in some cases, may more effectively demoralize a troll than simple banning. (One technique I've seen is "disemvowelling", in which all the vowels are deleted from a troll's comments. This makes it clear that action has been taken, and the troll's comments can be ignored, or can be puzzled out, if a regular participant wants to figure out what is going on.)
Welcome to the forum. I assume you are a cockroach? We accept cockroaches here too and welcome the diversity of an arthropod's point of view, for we don't get very many arthropods here. May I ask your name? Your handle is trilobitesAvengeMammals. Is that also your name?
Table-ized A.I.
Moderation works if the moderators do NOT use moderation to push their own agenda.
Sadly as the article says, a LOT of people think provoking a debate is a bad thing. Oh dear, I might get some new info that doesn't sit well with my world view. HIDE IT!
A troll is someone who provokes for no other reason then to provoke. That doesn't mean all who provoke are trolls. Sometimes they just see the world a different way. By the logic of a lot of Slashdot moderators, Gene Roddenberry was a troll for having a white male and black woman kiss on TV. That certainly caused people to call for censorship and others that TV was not the right medium for creating a debate at this point in history.
The slashdot style moderation system, especially now since meta-moderation seems to be gone, is all to open to abuse where a bleeding heart tries to hide views he disagrees with.
It would help if the moderator had to at least specify WHY he thinks the troll is trolling and if the moderation options included choices like "don't agree with this" and more importantly "this is factually wrong as can be proven by reading these articles".
Now "troll" and "flamebait" are just translated as "do not like" and "do not want to hear this".
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
You've not encountered sophisticated trolls who actually have valid points and do not spew profanity.
I've encountered a few really annoying newsgroup trolls over the years, people that only showed up in order to stir up crap for no good reason. Those types invariably seem to think that they're anonymous because they use an assumed name and some Yahoo/AOL/Google address they acquired for that particular purpose. Although it cost me dearly in hours and eyestrain, I've hunted a couple of those people down, identified them, then posted all of the steps necessary to connect the dots back to the newsgroups they were making asses of themselves on, with information detailed enough to derive their home telephone numbers, names, place of employment, and even more sensitive personal information (in one case, if someone chose to read between the lines). In both cases, that was the end of it -- no more troll. I did this the first time after having had a discussion with a friend, who suggested that this was the best way he had found to deal with astroturfers. I believe he was right (thanks Alex). For casual trolls, I still think it is advisable to simply ignore them -- for people that are seriously asinine, a little vigilantism can be effective.
Unlike some, I have no appreciation for "the Art of Trolling". Appreciating a skillful trolling is no more worthwhile than appreciating fine sewage-making. They add essentially the same benefit to society -- in fact, the sewage might be the greater contribution: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pecunia_non_olet
The thing with this type of dissolving conflicts is that it works very well on several levels.
If you just ban people for trolling, you might miss the whole point of their argument.
The thing is, a person acting like a troll, when confronted, will show it's true colors.
As a moderator of a political board on veganism I can tell you that most of my sub-moderators actually came from people coming into the forum as trolls but realized it was more interesting to go deeper into the subject instead.
If someone actually responds to what you are saying and not trying to goad you further, you can tell that they are actually serious, just not very good at communication, if they still try to goad you though, it's very easy to ban them since they are in fact not constructive.
So, it's sort of a filter.
...when posting pics of Picard and/or Riker facepalming is much more entertaining.
First off, some hilarious comments. I laughed really hard at the trolls trolling this article about trolls (though TFA wasn't even about trolls, it was about people who are loud and have opinions). Second of all, have you guys ever met a troll in real life? They have ADHD like 90% of the time (Temporal Lobe ADD). Since TFA is plugging a psyc book: if you have any interest in actual science in Psychology check out Daniel Amen's book "Change Your Brain, Change Your Life". If you like pseudo science and half-baked Cognitive Behavioral methods buy the book from the article.
You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation. -Plato
While I am not sure TFA will succeed with someone determined to be a troll, these things might:
http://freenode.net/philosophy.shtml
http://freenode.net/channel_guidelines.shtml
http://freenode.net/catalysts.shtml
tl;dr: Kindness, understanding and trying to make them see that people on the receiving side are people too can work wonders.
Do people older than 16 actually invest themselves that much in psuedo communication? Talk to people face-to-face sometimes, then internet trolls won't bother you.
Not all life is cyber. Extra Income
I figured it was going to advocate decapitation.
Someone should fix that Perl logo. And maybe explain what the hell Perl has to do with "Disarm Internet Trolls, Gently".
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Those aren't trolls. Those are people who disagree with you.
.
THIS IS NOT TROLLING
Here is the difference.
If you literally believe they are wrong and you want to challenge people on their belief and post discussion topics or interject topics into existing discussions you may at times be hijacking, but you are not trolling. You literally believe in what you are posting, and therefor you are not trolling.
If you simply go into a forum looking to post material that you know will cause havoc, regardless of your point of view on the matter, then you are trolling. Trolling does not mean you are trying to make a point, it means you are posting material that will cause trouble for the forum.
Picture an atheist getting some kicks on /b/ posting material about how god is awesome and how evolution fails and all sinners will go to hell. If you respond with heated debate YHBT
This is the worst article ever and people who like it suck bawls.
I say take off and nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.
This strategy for dealing with trolls ends up sounding very similar to the advice given by Dale Carnegie in "How to Win Friends and Influence People". This book is now nearly 80 years old (and the talks it is based on are even older), but changes in culture and technology really don't affect human nature. Internet trolls are really just egregious forms of the jerks you encounter in every day life. Every time you encounter some difficult person, you have to remember that getting want you want is more important that "being right" or "winning". That might even sound selfish at first, but with this kind of attitude, everyone wins because it encourages cooperation instead of conflict. Carnegie focused on humans' feelings of self-worth, so ultimately you're combining the golden rule with negotiation to achieve success. Of course, you should just read the book because you're not going to get much out of my second-hand interpretation.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
However, keep in mind that when doing the "fishing on the lake" thing, you can catch a fish in more than one way. They might bite your hook, or you may snag them on side. Either way, you got the fish, though in the latter method, you didn't even need bait.
Now trolling on the net is far more complicated, because the motives for trolling are not "just" to catch a fish. And argument-type trolling isn't limited to the Internet. Look at any business meeting, or sit in a courtroom for a while. The goal there isn't just to cause random disruption - it's to disrupt the other side's arguments to achieve a specific goal.
The "random noise generator" trolling is the most juvenile, and the most boring. Those you can handle by kicking them a few times so that they think they're getting a rise out of you, then ignoring them (this way, they'll keep at it against you for a while - it keeps them occupied and too busy to bother someone else for at least a bit). Eventually, the pattern will sink in, and they'll realize that you're just trolling them back, but they're always hopeful that *next time* they'll get you "for real".
There is absolutely no reason that you can't troll in service of something you believe in. It's a good way of getting others to try to find flaws in your arguments, rather than the echo chamber that passes for too much "reasoned argument" on the internet. Example - facebooks' phony claim that they have 500 million subscribers. They don't, and it only takes a few minutes to figure out a few reasons why, but because everyone *wants* to believe that facebook is some sort of great way to market crap - if only *they* could figure out how - it's in nobody's interest to challenge the group-think.
So I'll troll people who buy into the crap, and show how you can "buy" followers for as little as 5 for a penny, how many people have multiple accounts, how gamers will generate 500 accounts so that they can go into a game and quickly accumulate enough points so they don't get wiped out, how most posts never get read, etc., and how anyone who believes facebook is a good marketing platform for the average business is either a dumb f*** or a liar. (without that last bit, you don't get people so passionately trying to defend their illusions). Does facebook have 500 million users? No. Does facebook have 100 million users? Maybe.
Since the 2008 election, I've noticed how many people have suddenly become severely acrimonious about their political views online leading to trollism. Particularly on Facebook you see people posting politically-charged comments and links. I've come to the conclusion that voicing one's opinion online is akin to flipping people off while driving one's car. In your car you feel a sense of invincibility because you think "Screw you, a$$hole, what are you gonna do about it?!?" People behave in a manner that they would never do face to face. Blogs and Facebook are the same sort of virtual force field. You can say whatever you want and get away with it. What are they going to do about it? Un-friend you?
Heinlein makes a lot of sense when he says "An armed society is a polite society." You'd think twice about saying something inflammatory if you might be challenged to a duel.
TFA seems to consider a troll anyone being offensive. These are childish n00bs. A decent troll is adept at manipulation and is using it largely for his entertainment: trolling is a game, the objective is teh LOLS.
For many trolls there's a superiority/inferiority ego-massage thing going on and LOLS are to be obtained at the expense of others. Generally "points" are scored based on the amount of time others spend responding to you and the level of attention/infamy gained. Bonuses can be awarded for rage and combo bonus if you can dupe the tide of opinion in your favour against selected victims.
A ragequit is a decent victory however stealth is more successful at obtaining a win from convincing someone of a falsehood, particularly if the falsehood is liable to be realised "IRL" in a manner that causes embarrassment. Or indeed the LOLS of your victim - it is entirely unnecessary to take a negative approach. While all trolling involves gamesmanship, more sporting trolls set themselves rules and recognise that misery in easy meat is pyrrhic as you would have to be quite sad to consider it a game.
When counter-trolling, arguably the troll has set the rules of the game but one must be wary of this being the trap: a negative troll may be baiting with the objective of inducing you down to their character's level then pulling the old switcheroo. It's more important to adopt their rules if they are sporting trolls with higher standards, since this is a gentleman's game and you're playing on their court, failing to observe the rules is undignified and failure by default.
If any of this post is +informative, I'd hesitate to suggest counter-trolling since they're practiced, enjoy this kind of thing and negative trolls tend to, how should I say... have more free time and much less self-esteem. One of the easiest strategies though is to simply play along as the victim, all you need to do is keep them in the game and posting more than you, dancing to your tune.
In the mind of those who would call such a person a troll, it is literally inconceivable (and yes, it means what I think it means) that anyone could disagree with them without being literally insane or profoundly stupid. They're Right (with a capital R), after all, just ask them, and how could anyone possibly disagree with you when you're Right?
In short, YHBT (You Have Been Trolled).
I may have misunderstood the word "troll"
Yes, Shlomi, I believe that you have. Perhaps one day you will meet a real troll, and then you can write another article about that.
And I think it is unproductive to extend the definition of trolling to the more legitimate activities you describe. If I made a post about something I believed in and someone responded back with "are you real or just trolling?" i would say "not trolling" because I AM trying to make a valid point, not just cause trouble. Valid points do often involve insulting language. It doesn't mean you are trolling either, you just really feel that way.
The article's first example involves IRC. There's your first mistake... wasting time on IRC, the backside of the internet.
Heed the wisdom of Professor Falken's Joshua, "Strange game. The only winning move is not to play."
It's rather disturbing reading the article's suggestions... It reminds me that the audience appears to be comprised of individuals so completely lacking in social skills, one wonders for what purpose they congregate... other than to find others to act indifferently or rude toward. That sort of makes the coaching a little fruitless... unless, there again, my first advice is STAY OFF IRC.
Surrounding one's self with sociopaths tends to ingrain sociopathic behavior. Spend time around a normal distribution of well-adjusted people. It'll rub off on you, or you'll rub them the wrong way and discover very quickly (unlike in IRC) just how unacceptable IRC-style behavior really is. You'll either adjust quickly or suffer a fate more devastating to one's ego than being banned: insignificance.
Isn't good trolling a sort of variation on the Socratic Method? Illumination of truth though feigned ignorance or by soliciting contradictory comments from the Original commenter (In this case the "OP")?. Alternately if you consider the worst case scenario, where the troll is just attempting to make you mad, why even bother to engage them as they have already expressed their inability and or lack of desire to engage in a meaningful conversation.
Language evolves. Example - trolling used to be something you did from the back of a boat.
To be influential you have to both be liked and be convincing.
The fact that both Hitler (1938) and Stalin (1939, 1942) were voted Time Magazine's Person of the Year would tend to argue against your thesis.
Have you ever seen the faces of the kids that win at the Special Olympics? They might be retarded, but I'll be damned if they aren't stoked on life.
Motorcycles, Robots, Space Gossip and More!
Why thank you Petey for illustrating my point SO well. While Twitter was a master of insanity you are just another poor lame assburgers holding onto your magical woobie and having trouble typing a sentence. You really should go find Twitter and study at the feet of the master, because frankly ATM you aren't even qualified to wash his jockstrap.
Kinda sad really, but you are the PERFECT example of how the crazies and trolls don't measure up to the greats. So how does it feel to know that even in crazy you are third rate? Hell you can't even cook up a decent sockpuppet, just going back to your tired old lame ass king'sjester or joker or whatever. you are the equivalent of the mid season reality show replacement nobody can even muster up enough caring about to remember the name, what a sad little fate for a sad little man.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Is... is English your first language? I have a hard time imagining a native speaker thinking that type of random empHASIS gets their point across better. Seriously, use proper sentence structure, stop peppering your posts with parenthetical "lol's", lay off the caps lock, and forget the bold tag even exists, because you clearly don't know how to use it. Perhaps then you can spend more time actually discussing the superiority of hosts file blocking, or whatever you're on about, and less time defending yourself from people who think you're an insane troll.
Perhaps YOU can get "on topic", instead of trying the 2 oldest troll tricks in the book, of "I can't read your writing" &/or "you're crazy", etc./et al?
Has it ever occurred to you that there's a reason you get so many responses claiming your posts are hard to read and that you're probably insane? (Hint: They are, and you are, or at least do a good impression of it)
I'm not sure what you're going on about in the rest of it. I never complained that your post was off topic, just incredibly badly formatted. That doesn't take a PhD to notice, just basic reading comprehension. The fact that you think it requires a doctorate to not mash Caps Lock and double-quote at random probably says something, I'm not sure what (because your posts are insane, and don't present your intentions well, however much sense they probably make inside your own head). I'm guessing you were trying to make some type of satirical point.
I don't think this thread is all that off-topic, involving as it does the perception of trollishness, after all. Myself, I'm wondering if you're even capable of writing like a normal person, because if so you're avoiding doing so seemingly out of spite, which seems like kind of a trollish thing to do. Just try it once. Type a few sentences and capitalize only the first letter of the first word. Don't worry, you won't melt.
I applaud your attempt to save apk from himself but he is impervious to criticism. As you can see from the first reply he made he didn't even completely parse your post, instead he flew off the handle daring you to show your PH.D as if that were a requirement for forming an opinion about his terrible posts. No, apk is a dyed in the wool lunatic, frothing at the mouth about hosts and blind to the fact that everybody knows he's insane.
And apk, before you feel tempted to make some half assed response to this post, don't bother. All the rambling bullshit in the world will never convince even a single soul that your NOT everything I have accused you of being.
Celebrity worship is a poor substitute for Deity worship and costs more to boot.
As an aside, I'm waiting for MichaelKristopeit and APK duke it out.
Yo dawg, I heard you liek trolls so I put a troll in your troll so you can troll while you troll. lol
Celebrity worship is a poor substitute for Deity worship and costs more to boot.
BTW spanky, your "evidence" which you used to "expose hairyfeet in his BIG FAIL" is pretty weak. It amounts to you rebutting his post with "Nuh uh!" Bravo, your wit will surely go down in history as unassailable.
P.S. => Gossip and bullshit is what slashdot is about. Try digg if you want hard hitting commentary. Hell they might even welcome your raving lunacy there. Who knows?
Celebrity worship is a poor substitute for Deity worship and costs more to boot.
If Meta-CVS' author wishes to make it more popular, I strongly advise him to re-implement it in C, Perl, Python or something more standard.
Would it have been less abrasive if phrased as follows? "Meta-CVS depends on a runtime environment that most users haven't already installed. If Meta-CVS' author wishes to make it more popular, I strongly advise him to A. re-implement it such that it doesn't require installation of this framework, or B. package it to include this framework." I seem to remember similar complaints about C# programs for Windows when the .NET Framework wasn't bundled with the OS and a lot of the developed world was still stuck on dial-up and/or small hard drives. AC has a point that a lot of people don't want to have to download and install a runtime environment for every separate program that they use. Or should one package applications the Apple way, where every application includes a copy of the programming language's multimegabyte runtime library, either statically linked or as a DLL in the application's folder? How many redundant copies of the JVM, CLR, Python interpreter, PHP interpreter, Perl interpreter, and whatever libraries your CL compiler uses do you expect to have on a hard disk, and how do you expect to keep them all updated once critical security vulnerabilities become fixed?
What a fucking arrogant asshole, "strongly advising" his superior.
I didn't see it as so arrogant inside of an if-then clause. In other words: "If Meta-CVS is intended as a proof of concept not necessarily intended for wide adoption, go ahead and ignore the second half of the sentence."
One technique I've seen is "disemvowelling", in which all the vowels are deleted from a troll's comments. This makes it clear that action has been taken, and the troll's comments can be ignored, or can be puzzled out, if a regular participant wants to figure out what is going on.
That wouldn't work so well in a religious flamewar, especially on a forum with a lot of followers of Judaism or Islam. They're used to reading text without vowels, as their liturgical languages are written in an abjad, often without the diacritics that indicate short vowels.
What in the hell are you talking about? Without a PHD in what areas? Troll detection?
Where's your PHD in psychology to call me a 'ne-er-do-well' wannabe?
Don't be mad just because I call you out every time you start going on your pathetic tirades.
Celebrity worship is a poor substitute for Deity worship and costs more to boot.
At first I was amused by your bleatings, but it's starting to grow tiresome. First you assert that one requires a PHD in psychology, or at the very least experience in the field of psychoanalysis, to form an opinion about the apparent mental state of a particular poster on an internet forum. Then, you repeat yourself several times, all the while failing to produce a single reason why a "PHD in Psychology" is necessary for the formation of opinion.
To top it all off, you pretend I'm a troll when the only impact my posts will have is on YOU, APK. At best you could call it flamebait. But in reality, I'm only saying what everyone else thinks when you post the exact same copy pasta about HOSTS files or whatever other thing gets your rocks off.
Let's see what else you have in your playbook. So far I'm not impressed.
Celebrity worship is a poor substitute for Deity worship and costs more to boot.
Oh no sir, I was COUNTING on you keeping close vigil on your pathetic bleatings and making half assed, desperate attempts to defend yourself, just like you always do.
And how in the hell does my post in any way shape or form constitute backstabbing? ITS A PUBLIC FORUM!! Once again you show the world your fundamental incapacity for rational thought. Bravo, way to make my point for me! I hardly even have to do anything.
Celebrity worship is a poor substitute for Deity worship and costs more to boot.