trolls!

we all surely have experienced them, these strange little creatures that invade forums....but what makes people troll, are there different kinds of troll, and what is the best way of dealing with a persistent troll?

my opinions are

what makes people troll? some trolls do it out of rivalry for a forum, maybe they were banned a while ago, or have their own personal grudge against an admin or member. or some just randomly do it for the fun of it. i have been a troll before, i did it cause the admin on the forum kept ganging up on me on another forum, and i was banned from another forum she was admin on for no reason, when she kept talking badly about us on the forum. sort of to show her how it feels like to be trolled.

different kinds of trolls ive seen a few, the sort that just comes on to start flame wars and swear at people, the sort that somehow manages to have the same ip as one of the regular members, who fell out with another member, or had a post deleted...hmmmmmmmm (seen a few of these, the troll account only comes out when someones annoyed certain members of forums i am on) and there is one troll i have seen that stands apart from the rest. he lurks and spies on members, remembering enough personal information to impersonate them and get information off other members, then ruins their reputation by posting insults and porn, while pretending to be them. he knows several members email adresses and stuff, and harasses them in this way, pretending to be another forum member. he seems more clever than the average troll, but i cant understand why he has this hate for certain members.

dealing with trolls banning them helps, although some trolls ive seen can change their ip. if a troll keeps registering several times, the best way to sort them out is to put it so only admin can approve new members for a bit, until they get bored, so you can spot these troll accounts before they can post. one way i have seen from another admin i know, is to not ban the troll, instead put him so he cant use pm's, and make it so he cant post without the posts being approved by a mod. he doesnt cause any problems on that forum now. also it is important that members arent encouraged to feed the trolls, because this gives them more motivation to carry on trolling, they like the attention.

 

what makes people troll?

Having no life, honestly what do you achieve other than pissing a poor admin off and looking like a right arsehole?

different kinds of trolls

I have seen a few kinds, usually theyre the ones that will post useless and normally disruptive posts around a forum and there is other trolls who will sit there and jump on forum announcements nit picking when theyre not part of the community/barely if at all contributed.

dealing with trolls

Persistent bannings via htaccess/IP, make sure its harder for them to register with email verification and disallow disposable inboxes, never give up and allow them to ruin your forums.

 

Feed them plenty of fish. Preferably, kippers and/or shrimp to keep them in check. The thinking is,boney fish will keep them content and distracted whilst they are spending more time picking out the bones rather than enlightening the forum admin with senseless/random posts.

 

Very good insights, banana.

what makes people troll? ... different kinds of trolls
The has-no-life scenario is behind a lot of what has taken place on my forum. Whatever their issues, apparently nothing else they care about is demanding the time they spend trolling.

Some would like to take over the forum and run it differently. They try to make themselves default mods with public criticisms of other member's posts and opinions. Some just enjoy confrontation and even bullying, try to pick a fight with a particular member and follow that member from thread to thread pressing them on every point. Some have discouraging personal situations and take it out on other members from behind the screen. Some are just plain mean, evil people who like to see things come apart and go downhill.

dealing with trolls
My forum management has evolved from casual, case-by-case moderating of trolls, to a structured series of steps when we learned that a Real Troll has no intention of learning to behave differently, just finding ways of stringing management along. Now, regardless of who, troll behavior gets: one no-points warning; next time is a warning with a list of consequences of future infractions; next time is a suspension of 1 week to 1 month depending on the infraction; last time is ... the last time, they are out "indefinitely" = banned.

Once a troll is suspended for a time or banned indefinitely, they do not get back on the forum without their written agreement to abide by rules and respect mod direction. Those who are banned are out for at least a year before they can ask about re-admittance. They need time for learning to process, since it didn't before. I think only one has returned, successfully I'm happy to say.

When it seems to be needed we remind everyone that participation on a forum is their agreement to respect the rules and the mods.

 

We generally warn trolls as they're trolling that it's not allowed. We also warn those who "feed the trolls" (by replying) which can cause double the moderation time spent clearing up a thread or whatever.

We don't tolerate it, and we'll remove accounts of offending members pretty sharpish. If you let it start, it can really ruin the forum atmosphere for the regulars, and I'd never allow that.

(Took a while to learn how to deal with trolls the best way - but the quickest is to just remove them from the forum the very first time you see them trolling or searching the forum for a certain members posts - which they then reply to to annoy them or whatever).

Wiki has the best definition of trolling IMO and we link to that in our terms.

 

May I recommend the mod from the org called "AE Detector" which detects multiple accounts by one user. It tracks a couple of things inc IP (definately IP, but I think it does track other stuff too).

This wont cut them all out, but will help with those who have had a bit too much to drink and act on impulse and don't do it on their account with lots of posts, so they make a new one which they don't mind being erased.

We PM BOTH accounts with something like "what are you doing with two accounts? - confirm which one you wany to use and which one you want removing as it's not allowed" and we try to do this before the second account gets used to post with.

Once you get known for being good at clocking this, word gets about, and you really can cut down on regular trolls. Then just leaving those who know to use proxy's and the likes, which can be hard to detect, and we just remove those as and when we see them troll.

 

that AE detector also uses cookies to track the same computer. So if one user is using the same computer to run several accounts, it'll catch it.

Its a great little hack..and i wouldnt leave home without it.

 

Yeah that's the one.

If you have the older version, upgrade, as it stores IP's in a database now and you can set it to store for a week or so and I found since I upgraded to the newer version that it caused more alarms, which was good to spot.

 

I think trolls can be beneficial to a forum sometimes; if activity is dipping, then a bit of controversy (providing its controlled and monitored) can stimulate discussion again. I think it all depends on the type of troll

 

what makes people troll?......you have obviously never supported Doncaster Rovers

are there different types of troll?................yep some support Rotherham and even Leeds United


what is the best way to stop them?.......get them an Arsenal season ticket


(sorry about that I need a short burst of comic relief, could someone please translate it into American for the other half of the board)

 

I'd take that Arsenal season ticket!!!

 

Up until a couple of months ago, I was lucky and hadn't had to deal with a troll. But it was only a matter of time...

We had a member troll because one of our moderators is also a moderator on another forum, and this troll got banned from the other forum (for what? Trolling - it's just a vicious circle).
She registered and quickly realized that incessant spamming wasn't possible since we require the first two posts of all members to be approved by a moderator. She evolved () and then decided to create a new account and make a few "legitimate" posts, then resort to spamming. She also sent several explicit (and weird) PMs to a handful of members. This went on for quite a while with several accounts. I guess eventually she got tired of waiting for her IP address to change or of using proxies (due to our IP bans), because she hasn't been around for a while. I started a new forum in October and she's a member there too, but has been behaving so far. Our mods know to keep an eye on her though.


Why do people troll? Others have answered this fairly well: because they want attention, have no life, are having power struggles, or are just crude people and want to stir trouble.

 

A person who has no-life is not the only kind of people who are actually trolls, then again, what would you consider a no-life?

Now, what makes people trolls[internet]. People who purposely tend to cause fights between members and or moderators on purpose, not only that but they ALWAYS find something wrong to actually try and stirr something up. Not only that but they often use the excuse( at least the ones on my chat) "<subject> is unfair! Some one needs to speak up". Usually they use slangs taken from 4chan or ED. Not always a troll is aiming to make the admin's life hell, but they're aiming to make a user feel uncomfortable enough. A troll is not always the person who makes useless posts, on Pisoga we had a moderators who can be considered a troll, but what made him a troll? He kept trying to cause disruption between mods and members, he was a good mod, but as a user, you wouldn't want him on his bad side. Many trolls are usually people with characteristics of leadership, they are able to convince a group of people. Banning doesn't help the troll situation, has anyone heard "DO NOT FEED THE TROLL"??????? Trolls get bored eventually, they're never on the same shit over and over again, unless they really have no lives, in which in that case, you'd resort to .htaccess-ing it or IP banning from your ACP if the software lets you.

Why would people troll? They're bored and it brings them satisfaction to cause drama. Again, it's not really anything about being a no-life. There are trolls who are very busy and just take a bit of their time to honor their shitlisted members/mods/admins and make them spend the best times till they leave. Maybe they have nothing to do, a member has gotten on their nerves, they're just idiots of the internet who go to 4chan way too much, their brains are drained or they were dropped when they were born. Teenagers find this to be a 'cool' thing to do, which would most of the times make them failed trolls, usually these are the ones who go on 4chan too much or post videos on youtube as anonymous.

Not many have the right definition of what is a troll and MAY confuse them with attention whores, attention whores do not necessarily want to annoy a member, but to 'shine' on a forum. Yes~ An attention whore could be a troll, but doesn't make them one. They also tend to confuse them with just plain stupid people who are seriously clueless, or people with sarcastic humor, although many trolls DO have sarcastic humor.

Now, let me go back under my bridge~

 

I think many of us perceive trolls as different things. Members of a community who are annoying, always finding something to complain about, etc. aren't trolls in my opinion. They are just annoying members.

To me, a troll is somebody who incessantly posts inappropriate posts that obviously don't belong on a forum.

With this, I do agree. Using creative tactics with trolls (banning, "miserable users", global ignore, etc.) isn't a good idea; if you change things up, you are essentially challenging them, inviting them to rise to the occasion and cause even more trouble. The key is to remain 100% consistent in your actions. It may get repetitive and boring, but the more consistent and boring you are, the more likely the troll is to become bored as well and give up. I recommend simply banning the troll and their IP, over and over again until they go away. At least while it's still manageable.

 

Well put, I've been meaning to say exactly or basically the same thing you said for a few days now but laziness got in the way. I've been known to be called a troll on 1 site, but to be a troll, doesn't this entail not to contribute to anyone community? I think we could debate on what defines a troll but I feel fmb comes close.

I think the word troll gets thrown around to much somewhat too easily and can be mis-used a little by people who themselves have "no life" so they pass off their own shitty life to someone else and speak through them. I've seen people been branded as trolls for showing concern, suggesting etc. I think in this day an age of the inet trolling is something people throw around when they "don't agree with you" or they have to excuse their own actions for being lazy and selfish.

Granted, some people are indeed trolls but whether or not they see themselves as trolls i would assume they would feed themselves carrots to keep their problematic long pointy noses in check.

 

Because my sites are mostly related to gaming and such, I run into a lot of trolls/script kiddies.

Most trolls that you get, are ones that just post the same drivel from 4Chan, and try to annoy people, and I've found (At least for me), that they really can't do much against someone doing the same back.

I've made about ~40 trolls leave my forums, just because they can't really say or do anything that bugs me, because I can just limit their posting to specific forums, and than trash them right back =].

 

ive seen a few ways admins can deal with trolls, and its the same notorious troll on a few of the forums i post on.

one admin put it so they have to approve new members, put the troll so he could only see a few sections (not the bits that contain photos or personal information) and warned members what bits he can read. his posts can only be seen by staff, and have to be approved by a mod before they are shown on the forum. he has caused no problems since then, that the members can see, and he visits the forum less and less cause nobody replies to his threads.

the other (my competitor) found out where he works and phones his boss, trying to get him fired. i dont think this is a good idea because now hes even more horrible to her on the forums