Forum Trolls

[zylon]

Every so often, someone exhibiting all the traits of a classic "forum troll" makes an appearance. I believe we have one such in our midst now. I'm guessing that "Admin" knows of this, as they no doubt have received many complaints.

What to do about it is another thing. An experienced troll, in control of her* emotions, will no doubt increase traffic to a forum, thereby giving pause to thoughts of banning her. Eventually, the troll will self destruct, but how many forum members will have left before that happens?

When responding to a troll, whether she is coming across as your "friend" or blatantly trying to goad you, remember; she is likely getting paid for every response she elicits.

* "her" and "his" interchangeable.

A couple snips from an excellent CureZone piece describing a troll to a tee.

A classic CureZone troll is trying to make us believe that he is a genuine skeptic with no hidden agenda. He is divisive and argumentative with need-to-be-right attitude, "searching for the truth", flaming discussion, and sometimes insulting people or provoking people to insult him. Troll is usually an expert in reusing the same words of its opponents and in turning it against them.

While sometimes, he may sound like a stupid, uninformed, ignorant poster, do not be deceived! Most trolls are highly intelligent people trying to hide behind a mask of stupidity and/or ignorance! They usually have an agenda. Very few trolls come to CureZone out of pure skepticism.

(...)

Finally, trolls create a paranoid environment, such that a casual criticism by a new arrival can elicit a ferocious and inappropriate backlash.

When trolls are ignored they step up their attacks, desperately seeking the attention they crave. Their messages become more and more foul, and they post ever more of them.

Alternatively, they may protest that their right to free speech is being curtailed.

Perhaps the most difficult challenge for a webmaster is deciding whether to take steps against a troll that a few people find entertaining. Some trolls do have a creative spark and have chosen to squander it on being disruptive. There is a certain perverse pleasure in watching some of them. Ultimately, though, the webmaster has to decide if the troll actually cares about putting on a good show for the regular participants, or is simply playing to an audience of one -- himself.
http://curezone.com/forums/troll.asp

[FrugalTrader]

Please use the 'report post ' button for posts that you feel do not meet forum guidelines and we will have a look.

[Jungle]

+1. Getting a little tired of reading someone's posts.

[MoneyGal]

There's always the ignore function!

[Cal]

How it work for a troll to get paid for responses that they elicit?

Other than someone having no life, and having either received too few or too many hugs when they were a child, I really don't understand why someone would waste their time doing this.

[andrewf]

I'm curious who people are bugged by. You could make a case that Belguy was a troll, maybe, but I don't think so.

[jcgd]

It's not Belguy... he provides some comic relief! Although I do know what you mean.

I think I know of the person in question, and yes, it is very annoying. But what can you do about someone who technically isn't breaking any rules, besides hoping Darwinism takes care of things for us?

[Karen]

Are we just naive, Andrew? I don't have a clue whom they're talking about either!

[Four Pillars]

I know you are not talking about Belguy (although I do consider him a troll), but I did put him on ignore for quite a while.

The problem is that you can still see when he posts, but you can't see the content.

After a while I couldn't help myself - I just had to see what nonsense he was writing and took him off ignore. He is quite entertaining.

[jcgd]

And even with his antics, he still posts legitimate content. He's just always hysterical and over the top...