We will all encounter other people online who frustrate us for a variety of reasons. Sometimes they simply disagree with us or are misinformed. Unfortunately, some individuals purposefully author posts and comments designed specifically to disrupt an online community or target an individual. These people are commonly referred to as trolls. While there is no official definition of a troll, we will use the following definition from RationalWiki.
troll: someone who engages in discussions purely to provoke or annoy
Warning
Don’t label someone else as a troll simply because they disagree with you and you want to belittle their viewpoint. One common danger we need to avoid is overusing terms like troll for the purpose of shutting down a dialogue with someone who expresses thoughts we disagree with. If they have something legitimate to say, treat them like anyone else who comments on your post.
How to Tame a Troll
Unfortunately, one of the first things you will learn is that there is no way to actually tame a troll. Instead, a very important skill is learning how to properly respond to trolls. Experts agree that trolls are often motivated by a desire for attention and the sense of enjoyment they derive from provoking their victims. For this reason, the best way to deal with a troll is to avoid playing into their hands by refusing to give them what they want.
Your Responsibilities When Dealing With a Troll
- If you encounter a toll within our blog, report it immediately to your teacher.
- Post nothing in response except DFTT. This stands for Don’t Feed the Trolls, and serves as a warning to other members of the community to stop and consider the post or comment in the light that it was created with the intention of provoking people. No one else should respond or comment further relating to what the troll posted.
- Under no circumstances should you respond to a troll in anger. Not only does this play right into their hands by giving them what they want, it also means that you have sunk to their level and become part of the problem.
More Information
Excerpts from RationalWiki
Although originally a non-offensive reference to fishing by trolling for comments or suggestions, the term in Internetspeak has evolved and now refers to someone who engages in discussions purely to provoke or annoy. Because trolls take away from productive work, the ideal response is to starve the troll of attention by ignoring it and going about your usual business. People being people, though, someone usually takes the bait, which is why trolls are so notorious.
Many presume that troll refers to the ugly monsters who eat people alive, but the term derives from the practice in fishing of dragging a baited hook or lure behind a moving boat (trolling). In other words, trolls are looking for some sucker to bite.
Characteristics
A troll has little or no interest in contributing to the development of the site in question and is interested in some or all of the following:
- Deliberately angering people.
- Breaking the normal flow of debate/discussion.
- Disrupting the smooth operation of the site.
- Deliberately being annoying for the sake of being obnoxious. For instance, using abusive names to refer to all of the members on the site.
- Pretending to be profoundly ignorant or stupid, gleaning some weird sense of having “won” when other users subsequently come to believe this.
- Making itself the main topic of interest or discussion.
Motives
It is probable that, for the troll, the last point is the most important. To this end it will post deliberately inflammatory messages which generate inflammatory responses; complain about being the victim of the inflammatory responses; endeavor to obtain allies agains the discrimination it feels; turn on those same allies, etc. The whole objective of the exercise is to disrupt or make someone do something you wanted them to do for laughs.
If a poster begins to post comments along the lines of, “Can’t you see how stupid you all are?” or “I keep laughing at all of you,” there is a high probability that the poster is a troll.
Treatment
Because the troll feeds on having its name mentioned or by generating debate or ill feeling, many internet users either ignore the troll completely or respond with the phrase, “Don’t Feed the Troll.”
Blocking is available on many social media sites and boards. This is useful when you find yourself easily triggered by trolls fishing.
Some users engage in “troll baiting.” In this unkindly sport the objective is to turn the tables on the troll so that it becomes enraged. While mildly amusing in the short term, it is rarely successful in driving the troll away.
Most importantly, trolls take away from productive work. The only ethical way to avoid this is to stop feeding the troll and go about your usual work.
How to Spot a Troll
Usually it is very difficult to tell the difference between a troll and somebody who is simply [a jerk]. It is important to note that a troll doesn’t always resort to insults. Some of them pretend to hold the ideals that are unpopular on a particular website or forum. The best way to spot a troll is to take into consideration how long its posts are. If its posts are short then it is more than likely you are dealing with a troll. A good troll also doesn’t show any signs of anger in their posts, so it would be best to keep an eye out for that too.
On social networking sites it is much easier to spot trolls. The first way is to look at their profile: if the user has no picture of him/herself then it is most likely a troll. It’s also useful to take a look at how old the user’s account is: the newer the account, the more likely it is a troll. Also, if this user has contacted you directly on your own page (as opposed to a group you are a member of) then take that as a tell-tale sign.
Alternative Ways to Deal with Trolls
If you feel exceptionally compelled to respond to a troll, don’t post long comments. Try to make any responses as short and concise as possible; it’s often best to use exceptionally bland statements such as “Thank you for your comments, which we shall give due consideration.” Your main objective is to disarm the troll’s chances of getting an emotional response from other users, which in turn will hopefully demotivate it until it gives up its attempts. This method is not fool-proof: it can at times achieve the exact opposite results depending on the troll and how you go about doing this.
Caveat
It is, of course, an improper argument ad hominem (personal attack) when you accuse a user of being a troll just because you don’t like what they are saying or the way they are saying it. Don’t accuse someone of being a troll just to dismiss their argument. Just because you disagree doesn’t necessarily mean the user is trying to be disruptive, so it is necessary to measure the suspected troll against the description given above.