Recently, all of the alt.discuss newsgroups (NGs)
have been under attack by a group of "trolls".
SOME SIGNS THAT A POSTER IS A TROLL
Well, in a nut-shell, a TROLL is someone who
constantly disrupts a NG for no reason other than
just because they CAN. They will often post
off-topic, and attack members of the NG that have
done nothing to provoke hem. The troll will then
often try to make it look like the NG member had
attacked THEM. They will constantly refer to posts made by that member in which the member had "flamed" them (verabally attacked them in the NG). What they naturally fail to ALSO say is that the posts are in RESPONSE to a flame originated by the troll himself.
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The troll will often re-arrange the nickname of
another poster, in order to mock them.
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They will also constantly point out spelling errors in posts.
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When responding to a post, they will often include some or all of that post and respond to it line-by-line.
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The troll will complain about how the entire NG is always "picking on them".
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The troll rarely, if ever, contributes to the NG
itself.
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They will often call for the NG to "get back on
topic" while constantly posting to off-topic threads in order to keep them going.
- You will also notice that a troll will respond to nearly every poster in a thread individually. Rather than reading the entire thread, then adding their view, they will click a post, respond, then go to the next and do it again, EVEN if they are stating the same thing over and over again.
A troll will often lurk for awhile to get the "feel" of the NG, so they can know just which "buttons" to push. They will single out one or two people whom they think they can intimidate, then harrass them to the point of leaving the NG. That done, they will "calm down" for awhile, then attack someone else.
Unfortunately, there is only ONE sure way to beat a troll, and that is to IGNORE them.
A troll "feeds" off of the chaos he wreaks in a NG. If he can get even a single person to respond to him, he will be happy. Once he gets the first "victim", it is only a matter of time until he suckers someone else into the arguement. He will turn the NG on its ear and make it so that the ONLY topic of real discussion is HIM and what HE is posting, instead of the proper topic for that NG.
Posters that respond to trolls, or constantly post threads asking OTHERS to ignore the trolls wind up doing the dirty work FOR the troll, even though their intentions are exactly the opposite. By posting to these threads, you only keep the off-topic threads going, and the troll's name at the top of the NG, which is EXACTLY what he wants!
Bottom line, to kill a troll, IGNORE him!! A troll that can't incite you has no power and WILL eventually move on. For those that have a hard time NOT responding to trolls, your best defense is to NEVER click on a post with the trolls name on it. Once you have identified someone as a troll, bypass their posts from then on and don't even read them, REGARDLESS of what you see in the subject heading!
If you want your NG to stay on-topic, you have to make an effort to KEEP it that way. And sometimes, the best way to do that is to do NOTHING AT ALL.
This is a little pet-project of mine, that seems to be working quite well. You do not have to use one of my swords as a link to this page if you do not want to; a simple text link will suffice if that is your style:
If you would like to do something about trolls,
you can add one of these images to your e-mail SIG, with a link back to this page, so that others can read this as well. I think that would be MUCH better than constantly posting useless threads that will likely be ignored by all but the trolls anyway.
If you would like to link to this page using one of my swords, use this code:
<<>a
href="https://members.tripod.com/~thewebtvguru/trolls/index.html"<>>
<<>img src="AddyOfSwordOfYourChoice" width=400
height=75<>>
<<>/a<>>
You can either use my file, or you can TL it to your own site, whichever you prefer. You can of course resize the swords as necessary. This is their default size, for best display.
NOTE: By taking one of these swords, you agree NOT to respond to any trolls! If you want to use one of my swords, you are welcome to them, but ONLY if you are serious enough about eliminating trolls to do what is necessary: IGNORE them.
And for those that are REALLY fanatical (LOL):
Visitors since 7/31/99: