How To Deal With Internet Bullies? 724
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?"
Stop Playing Their Game (Score:5, Insightful)
- Greg
Relax (Score:5, Insightful)
Your best bet is to just relax. Remember, when you argue with an idiot on the internet, two idiots are arguing.
Internet (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:wtf (Score:2, Insightful)
ban, done. you really needed to ask slashdot about this nonsense?
Better yet, does Slashdot need to post this nonsense?
What? (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
Deal with it judiciously, but carefully (Score:4, Insightful)
TREX them (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Stop Playing Their Game (Score:5, Insightful)
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."
Just because you stop participating doesn't magically cause the troll to lose interest.
If you can give them a non-public outlet to share their critiques, that's great, but generally you pretty much have to ban or otherwise silence the persistent ones.
What did we do on AOL in the 90's (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
ban'em (Score:5, Insightful)
Quit whining (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Internet (Score:5, Insightful)
Winning an argument on the Internet is really hard, because people can trump you with their dickhead status or their real status.
Or as Wikipedia has shown, by their persistence.
You're the one in charge (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:Why not just say ... (Score:5, Insightful)
If you run the forum, the best solution is to ban him, and ban him with every new account he makes.
Re:TREX them (Score:3, Insightful)
thats quite clever, may I suggest that it's too obvious however. The awesome version would be to slowly reduce the % of users that can see his posts to 0 thereby making him think that no one likes him. Nothing more crushing to the troll than attention starvation.
Re:Create a "Trollcage" (Score:3, Insightful)
No mod points for me, so I just wanted to say: this is a great idea.
This shouldn't be the only thing in your bag of tricks, but it should be your very first attempt. Hold off on trying anything until after (if) the bully is clever enough to figure it out.
If your forum software doesn't support this natively (I think most don't) and you cannot implement it yourself, any competent PHP developer should be able to implement it for you for just an hour of billable time.
Re:Stop Playing Their Game (Score:5, Insightful)
One of my favourite sayings:
"Never mud wrestle with a pig. You get all dirty and the pig likes it."
Re:Internet (Score:5, Insightful)
Winning an argument on the Internet is really hard...
Nope, winning an argument on the Internet is easy. Convincing your opponent that you've won is often impossible.
Old saying here on Slashdot... (Score:4, Insightful)
Where's the problem? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
We may be the ones being played (Score:5, Insightful)
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?
It's YOUR site - nuke him. (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Geeks! (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:Internet (Score:5, Insightful)
This is in no way restricted to the internet. It's called Rhetoric, and some people are very, very good at it.
A well practiced Rhetorician can hold firm to their position and outright win any debate no matter what that position is. It's a spectacle as breathtaking as it is devastating. You cannot win, not with your training and experience, i.e. which is probably next to none.
The first mistake is to be calm and reasonable. You have lost at this point. They will berate, accuse and generally inflame the entire discussion until you lose your composure in some small way, at which point they will accuse you of flying off the handle or being unreasonable/oppressive.
The second mistake is expecting them to be logical about things. It's not about logic. It's about sounding like you're in the right. They will spout utter flasehoods and stand firmly by them as long as there is a morsel of plausibility or deniablity. Simultaneously they will select minor problems with your opinion and declare them to be gaping holes or fundamental errors. You're wasting your time trying to point out their lies/errors, as they will easily counterpoint with another one or else move onto a completely new fantasy. All of this puts you on the back foot.
The third mistake and worst mistake is thinking that the purpose of your debate is for one to persuade or win over the other. Never going to happen. You're not going to listen to this polemicist, and they most certainly have no interest in winning over you. The purpose of the debate is to win over the crowd/audience. To win over the undecided, unsure and uneducated.
By engaging fruitlessly in such a debate, by being on the receiving end of one explosive reply after another, you are feeding the crowds doubt about your opinion. Each illogical and emotional reply to you seems ridiculous, but the crowd listens because they generally have no way of telling truths from falsehoods. They see two talking heads, and one of them is fiery indeed, and using language and appealing to emotions they easily understand. What are you going to respond with? Facts!? You're wasting your time, unless your position is a rock hard science, and even then, you could be up against a creationists/crank.
The only way to win, is not to play. Do not feed these trolls. Simply saying "You're arguments are flawed/irrational, and I won't grace them with a response", is vastly more effective than fueling their tirades. The longer you fail to do so, the more impossible it will be to exit the debate without having "lost" (the crowd).
If you absolutely must engage with such a debater, and I counsel strongly against it, then you might benefit from studying logical fallacies [wikipedia.org], which your opponent is employing in spades. Being able to point out not only his errors, but what type of error it actually is, is a very powerful countermeasure. Just don't rely on it. These guys can be extremely competent, and the best ones have studied most of those already.
You are not trained in Rhetoric, and they are. I repeat, the only way to win, is not to play. Give them no oxygen, because they'll just burn brighter.
disemvowel him. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:wtf (Score:2, Insightful)
I RTFMB (Message Board), and don't see a problem (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:Internet (Score:3, Insightful)
Winning an argument on the Internet is really hard...
Nope, winning an argument on the Internet is easy. Convincing your opponent that you've won is often impossible.
And that's not unique to the Internet either.
Re:Stop Playing Their Game (Score:5, Insightful)
It's your forum. Delete his crap and move on. (Score:4, Insightful)
Profit? (Score:3, Insightful)
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?
Re:We may be the ones being played (Score:5, Insightful)
I would agree with what "Magic5Ball" has said. The major contributor to the discussion hasn't critised the website owner personally or used offensive words. The guy does seem to know what he is talking about even if he/she sounds a bit egotistical. I've known people like that before, and usually they don't know that they are being a bit abrasive. If it resorts to name calling then it is bullying.
Re:Stop Playing Their Game (Score:5, Insightful)
That doesn't mean that everyone else will ignore the troll. You, the site administrator, can decide not to respond. However, if you have X number of users, it only takes a very small fraction of X to keep that troll going, and depending on what kind of forum you have, allowing the troll to persist could be interpreted as apathy or acceptance of what they are doing. So yes, if they are there just to cause trouble then banning them is not unreasonable at all.
Words of Advice for Young People (Score:0, Insightful)
Re:Stop Playing Their Game (Score:2, Insightful)
Whoever modded this redundant needs their geek card checked.
Re:Why not just say ... (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Why not just say ... (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Slashdot's the bully! (Score:3, Insightful)
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?
Re:Stop Playing Their Game (Score:5, Insightful)
So, essentially, what you say is that, if I want to fuck with someone, I just need to register their nick on your forum and let the troll inside of me get creative, and you do all the work for me?
What forum do you run again? A service like this could come handy some time.
Re:Stop Playing Their Game (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
Clue for the humour impaired: quoting a line from a movie that has relevance is sometimes funny. Sometimes. Responding to such an event with the next line from the film isn't. Ever. It just shows how clueless you are and demonstrates a complete lack of social skills. If you think the film is so great, go watch it instead of trying to show how "in" you are. Great! You recognised the film and you know the next line! You want a fucking medal for that? A fucking parrot can do that. Stop being so fucking retarded.
Doesn't look like bullying to me (Score:4, Insightful)
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...
Re:Stop Playing Their Game (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:We may be the ones being played (Score:2, Insightful)
Yeah, I agree with Magic5Ball. I clicked through, hoping to see some internet bully being put in his place, instead I see a perfectly civil conversation between two people about technical details. I think the OP is reading into things too much, and being defensive. I'm guessing this, because I know I do quite often.
I constantly have to remind myself to read things in an impartial manner, and assume the other person likes me and is writing in the most congenial manner. Even then, I get really defensive over the stupidest stuff. "What do you *mean* we should use dashes instead of underscores? You jerk!" Any critique of my work seems like a personal attack, even when I know it's not, and I have to constantly remind myself that the other person most likely doesn't mean anything by it.
So "move along, nothing to see here." Could be a shameless plug, who knows.
Re:Stop Playing Their Game (Ironic Title, That.) (Score:5, Insightful)
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.)
I love you. (Score:4, Insightful)
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?
Re:Stop Playing Their Game (Ironic Title, That.) (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
And they will always get a rise (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
To the Editors (Timmmay) (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
He's no troll, you are! (Score:5, Insightful)
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 :).
Re:Stop Playing Their Game (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, sometimes it depends on the subject matter and their biases.
In some cases, selectively "feeding" the troll once or twice is a good things, then let them proceed to show everyone else they are idiots.
Sometimes, they can be their worst enemy.
That of course doesnt work for the truly intelligent trolls who count on a lack of understanding from the rest of your userbase when making their comments... so again, it depends on the type of content they are commenting on.
I've found in situations like that, "feeding" them initially is all it takes for them to continue to act the idiot and dig themselves deeper, eliciting a reaction from the rest of the forum users... and there's the beauty. People in the forums are more likely to believe each other than the forum owners... so when other forum users come in and slam the troll, others are more likely to believe those forum members as opposed to if you (the moderator) keep pointing out that he is wrong. The initial statement or two should always be as far as you go - to set the record straight.
And of course, if they are abusive of other forum members, lifestyles, religions, ethnicities, etc; then you may simply wish to ban them on those grounds. The same goes for if they are overly disruptive in the forums - but of course, let them step in it first, then push them off that cliff.
As a side note, the trolls dont always lose interest... especially if it is a topic "dear" to their heart and/or they seem to think they have some sort of grudge against you or the topic, and/or you are a competing forum/product. In those cases, no, they wont go away. In one forum I moderate, we have one such person. He's been banned multiple times, signs up again, will sit for a while before going back to the same subject and spouting off more nonsense and being generally abusive of anyone who disagrees. He's held (in the last year) six accounts, went to the effort of switching his IP to get a couple (when we blocked his IP range), and has tried signing up literally dozens of times - the "ignore" treatment did not work with him - nor did banning him 6 times. He still tries. He's move to other forums to complain about us and spew hate there too (and been banned from various of them as well), and still moves on.
Some people (like him) just dont have a life, and let their hate be their sole driving purpose in life.
Fortunately, most trolls dont fit that category... but some (like him) do.
So, as with anything that involves dealing with other people, there is no one perfect answer. Find the answer that fits each of your particular trolls.
You need to meet more people.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Stop Playing Their Game (Score:3, Insightful)
And how do you prevent the troll from getting a sockpuppet account to check whether other persons can see their posts?
We have been played (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
Re:Stop Playing Their Game (Ironic Title, That.) (Score:4, Insightful)
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?")
Re:Stop Playing Their Game (Score:2, Insightful)
"You want a fucking medal for that? A fucking parrot can do that. Stop being so fucking retarded." That is a great demonstrarion of the "social skills" that we have none of.
If a couple MP lines work you up that bad perhaps you should think about not reading
Re:Stop Playing Their Game (Score:3, Insightful)
Stupid idea. One IP could belong to several users, and one user could post from several IPs.
So what? If a handful of users can see the trolls big deal - the goal is to mute not delete.
Re:Why not just say ... (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:Stop Playing Their Game (Ironic Title, That.) (Score:3, Insightful)
I reject your definition of comedy and substitute my own. There is no objective definition of humor.
Well, there's always two opposite ends... (Score:3, Insightful)
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