Posted: 3/5/2001 4:52:20 PM EDT
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Who left the manhole off the sewer. We seem to be collecting a lot of morons these days. mike |
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Well, in a nut-shell, a TROLL is someone who constantly disrupts a board for no reason other than just because they CAN. They will often post off-topic, and attack members of the board that have done nothing to provoke them. The troll will then often try to make it look like the board member had attacked THEM. They will constantly refer to posts made by that member in which the member had "flamed" them. What they naturally fail to ALSO say is that the posts are in RESPONSE to a flame originated by the troll himself. [red]Troll Tactics[/red] The troll will often re-arrange the nickname of another poster, in order to mock them. They will also constantly point out spelling errors in posts.**** When responding to a post, they will often include some or all of that post and respond to it line-by-line. The troll will complain about how the entire board is always "picking on them". The troll rarely, if ever, contributes to the forum itself. They will often call for the forum 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 board, 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 board. That done, they will "calm down" for awhile, then attack someone else. [red]HOW TO BEAT A TROLL:[/red] 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 on a board. 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 board 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 board. 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 board, 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 board 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. ****Before pointing the finger at me - I was just helping out Captain Obvious in a tactful manner before he racked up a lot of posts as Captian Obvious.[:D] |
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Quoted: Trolls? Where? I don't see no steenking trolls! and now a few words from Jim Brady "Iwose likaaaa fooooo saaaayy...whaaaa wooste theeee quuusten???..." Sarah's interpretation: "Jim wants all guns banned" and a few words from stephen hawking "I am a robot, take me to your leader." |