What do you consider trolling?

[Patrick [ASE]]

When you are on the internet, you run into various types of people from around the world. Some people are very friendly, while some are not. To the latter, the most common term applied to them is "troll."

As a staff member, how do you determine "trolling? What are your different levels of it? How does your forum handle "trolls?" Are there stipulations in your rules in regards to "trolling?" Why or why not?


Submitted by HoudiniDerek

[Orkamad]

trolls for me would be those who are misusing the forum for its actual purpose for example if its a forum about captive killer whales, start going all anti-captivity all over the threads or ones who take peoples' photos and claim them as their own.

[viruszero]

For my own descriptions, at the worst a greater troll is someone who joins a forum using false information. (Proxy/Tor IP, fake/disposeable email, obvious inflamatory name, unrealistic age... like saying they're 100-118 yrs old.) Then proceeds to harass and bother the members. When banned they quickly return and begin to harass the members again. Turning off registrations and/or setting them to admin activation only deters this troll for only a little while. And as soon as you restore the board so people can rejoin, they return and harass the members again.

At the least annoying, a lesser troll is someone who just makes a nuisance of themselves. Nitpicking at the admins/mods every action, feuding with the members for the most pointless reasons. They may exhibit excessive attitude towards others, thinking they are the best. They may become enraged or atleast annoyed if you express a remotely different opinion from theirs. But they toe the line of the acceptable rules, so they know when to back off so they don't draw the fire of the mods or admins. These trolls typically don't use techniques to hide their identities, instead they rely on not crossing the rules too much or too far.

Then between the two is the troll who toes the line sometimes, but others brazenly confronts the members or admins. This troll may or may not use a proxy/tor/anonymizer to hide their identity. But they are less concerned with not crossing the rules as the lesser troll but they don't normally go out of their way to cross rules like the greater troll.

As for what to do about it, I simply just ban the greater trolls. The others get a warning the first time, depending upon what they did... if they did something ToS offensive then they're gone, zero warnings at all.

Now as for the reasoning behind the punishments... a greater troll knows consciously they're doing it. There is no denying this, so they're normally more harmful on a community thus they're best sent packing ASAP. The lesser troll might not realize what they are doing, so they're given the benefit of a doubt with a warning. The mid level troll probably knows what they're doing, but it is always best to play it safe and give them the benefit of a doubt as well. Plus it gives them a chance to reform and quit the disruptions. It might send a message that we don't tolerate your abuse, so wise up. (Though this can work both ways for a troll... they might reform or they might take it as a challenge to do as much damage as they can.)

[HoudiniDerek]

Very impressive list, viruszero. I have to agree with most of it.

With most trolls, my forums characterize them as anyone who is not there to improve or exist within the community of the forum, especially as it relates to the theme. While there are members who do this to a greater or lesser degree, I treat them all the same way for the most part.

We avoid contact with them at all possible, while I try to PM them when I can. I lock threads or delete posts as necessary, from advertising to flaming. Since the community does not take measures to interact with them, the ones that were only there to test the waters tend to leave. The ones who are more persistent still get threads locked and whatnot. I am not really a ban-happy admin, so I give them some chances. However, once it is proven that they will never change, they get to receive a lifetime ban. Most do not come back. The ones that manage to get around the bans, continue to get added to the list with all of their proxies.

The best thing about trolling at my forum: The community will happily ignore you so there is not a feeding ground for them and they starve of the attention they need. If you have a solid community, trolls are less likely to be a problem.

[Gia_Sesshoumaru]

I agree with both viruszero and HoudiniDerek.

I say that the way my forum handles these kinds of people is... well, quite simply, we do not. We do not tolerate those kinds of people who make it not only a negative enviornment for which the staff and members to play in, but also harder for the staff to run things. Those kind of people disrupt the site and the enviornment as well as annoying everyone, and they can't be tolerated. Now, if they're reasonable, and can be dealt with in a reasonable manner, then we do so. However, if they are the type of person that is going to yell at us, order the staff around and tell us how to do our jobs when are and are being as nice as humanly possible, then those people need to just be deleted, because they can't be reasoned with or dealt with.

[Des]

I would define a troll as someone who:

- Deliberately and continuously breaks rules with a malicious intent
- Impersonates members or admins in any way (this obviously cannot have an innocent explanation)
- Deliberately tries to find and exploit every loophole in the rules, especially with forums that have rules that are a little lax, and based on common sense.
- Bad mouthing the forum on the forum and outside, or by PM [This does not include constructive criticism. It includes the type of comments like, "This site's admin is horrible, come join mine." ]
- Showing absolutely no respect for the admins and the staff
- Trying to create problems between the members of the community by plotting
- Testing the site's patience just to see how far they can go till they are punished
- Abusing staff positions (biggest troll)
- Spamming/Flaming/Deliberately posting stuff against the TOS.

If this would happen in my site, I would first advise them gently, then give a warning if such behaviours continue, and then definitely ban the member from my site. If the troll returns I would take more measures such as not allowing guests to register without permission etc. for a fixed period of time. After all, they must lose patience after a while.

Edit: I have no rules regarding trolling. Depending on the level of it (from lets say breaking a few rules once in a while to deliberately impersonating someone) I would simply ban the concerned person or issue a warning. There is no point making a rule about this, it is common sense, and it just gives the troll another rule to break. ("No trolling.")

[ToriJ]

I define a troll as someone who joins a forum with the intent to create chaos and start flame wars with other members and also promote a type of spam within the boards. On my old Sailor Moon RP I had a guest post on the Cbox which later made racist remarks about the members on it because no one was playing an "African American" character on the forum. He later called us racists for ignoring him (Which is always the right thing to do with a troll, ignore and report.) and began talking to himself under two different aliases in the chat box.

Another person just joined to spam the forum and PMs with disgusting pictures that made the mod that was on at the time who edited them out disgusted. These are probably what you would call the 'extreme' trolls. My policy with them is to ban them on the spot. If you only intend to cause problems then you're gone. I agree with viruszero on the lesser trolls. I known some people who was like that and later changed their ways when a staff member put their foot down. I would advise restraint and caution with those kind of people and if needed a PM chat to let them know they're on thin ice and that they should back off a little. They can debate and express a disagreement in better ways than what they most likely do at first. I always think a written warning, then a warning in the CT and then a ban is a good way to go about punishment. A three strikes you're out kind of rule.

[JessicaMW]

While my sister and I's forums are rather secluded from trolls. One thing that we have came across is members from {what they consider rival} forums sending in their own members to cause problems. We have become increasingly weary of 'noobs'. While we refuse to hide the forum, we go about out day and trust that the asst admins on the board can handle things if we are not there. We have been so successful in the first board that we recently moved time up 5 years and made a sister board.

Basically, we ignore them and make sure that where we place out time and energy in stays nice and standing. With no real powers the only thing they can do is write things that in turn are ignored and deleted. Anything personal is argued but we stay were we know we are a family. While the 'trolls' exist for more commercial boards, we tend to have our own personal ones that live under our bridges.

hmmm, Anyone know how to get rid of a personal troll? ..lol

[Nacku]

Unfortunately, Jessica, once a troll decides to be fixated on you...you can't get rid of them unless you totally disappear.

Viruszero, I had this person join my yahoogroup back in 2004 and started trolling with her insane "cruise" story (which kept changing) I was even contacted by admins of other sites warning me about her. I ended up restricting new members from openly joining. That didn't work. I ended up changing the name of the group (the URL) and that didn't work, because she found other groups I was on and attacked me in them. To this day, this person still follows me and what's worse, she has friends that help her. So I can sympathize with you!

Trolling is, of course, to get a response from others. Basic gossip to get people all pissed off at someone with dirty underhanded tricks and unfortunately we've all fallen for that at one time or another by responding to them. There're a couple a' trolls that like to post crap and I've learned to ignore it no matter how insane and false the posts are. Ergo, trolling by telling outrageous things that can never be true and an obvious ploy for attention disguised as some 'great truth' is absolutely the signature of a troll.

[viruszero]

Nacky, well, there may be one thing you can do... If the troll is still harassing you on another site, you may be able to report them there if you haven't. And have that site's staff take care of it. But even if you've reported it, and they have handled it once, if the abuse is still happening you gotta keep reporting it.

Now if you can acquire their real IP address, you may be able to use it to lodge a complaint with their ISP. Of course for this you should gather all the evidence you can and enclose it in the email as proof. (Screenshots and links to the offending material.) Because most Internet Service Providers (ISPs) have an abuse policy which you agree to when you use their service. With any luck, the ISP will investigate. (And as a result the troll may actually lose their internet access.)

But I urge caution with that method... Especially if you joined the troll's site or otherwise had contact with the troll themselves as they likely have your IP as well. And they may be able to use it in a similar manner to make false accusations or worse, especially if they realise what you've done.

---

Though one problem I've always had was ignoring trolls because if left unattended they may decide to up the ante so to speak to see what they can do to attract attention... For example if you ignore their ramblings, they may decide to post ToS offensive material . It might earn an instant ban, but if attention is what they seek, this would garner some atleast. As it means that the staff are atleast reading and following what the troll is doing.

And, Destiny, I quite agree with the "Abusing Staff Positions" aspect. Those can be the worst trolls as there may be nothing a member can do. Especially if the troll is the admin or the admin's trusted co-admin. And there may even be nothing you can report them to Proboards for.

Though even if the troll isn't staff, just having the backing of the staff can be just as bad. As it means staff acknowledges what the troll is doing, but they either don't care or they approve of it.

[Nacku]

In that, lies the problem...sometimes a troll will have an accompanying group of trolls to approve of their deeds.

I have done all the reporting the stalker to their ISP and even have the law involved, but you'd be amazed at how legal it is to post threats and look up 'recipes' on the internet. After the deranged psycho had lost her long-standing attacks within Yahoo, she then moved it onto MySpace (because she found that I was there and so Yahoo was no longer her weapon of choice) and you would have dropped your jaw at some of her blogs...she actually described killing me and another in a fire! Reporting her is what was done about it, and the account was removed. Then she made another, and another, and another...until she realized that MySpace was no longer a suitable weapon.

Nowadays, her attacks are just little surprise attacks using the email addresses of friends I know and the same people she also stalks and hates and curses and all that blooey. Nowadays, the main troll-turned-stalker just has her minions do her dirty work for her. Ack! They even attacked a Penn & Teller board just to bitch a blue streak. Gawd, trolls really have no life! I'd feel sorry for them if they weren't such nasty psycho worms from Hell.

[Tini♥]

In my opinion I consider "trolls" people who join the site and then start harassing the members or are rude to everyone. Bothering members and admins continuously and harassing them, asking them to change their posts because they didn't like it (in a RP forum that is), breaking several rules, not following the site requirements etc etc. You usually can't really control this type of people. I always try to be polite and friendly enough with them and try to explain to them that this is not how we "roll" on the site.

I also have certain rules in the rules of the site AND the cbox... For example asking people to be polite to the other members, that no racist or comments are allowed (and if something like that comes to my attention the member will be deleted immediately) and also I put Rules over the cbox with the most important rule: NO Insulting other members.

Also I noticed something else that in my opinion is trolling... I basically own RP forums, so each member must have a character... I often had people joining, but they didn't even bother to make an application or create a character. The only reason they joined was to advertise their sites! They started pming me and the rest of the staff members of the site and some members! Which I think it's outrageous since I have a guest friendly board that it's for Advertising purposes only! Joining a site just to advertise it's plain annoying! In all three times this happened I banned AND deleted the member after I pmed them asking them to advertise in the proper board if they like and that e don't appreciate bothering our members like that

[Nacku]

Reminds me of the person I was bugged to death to make her an admin and whaddya know, she posted other sites she was an admin in to promote herself. I honestly think she's trying to take over the internet! No doubt she pestered those original owners into giving her a position. With jazzing up their look, she's able to talk the unsuspecting into letting her run the place. When she takes over the main site she wants so bad, I'm just leaving. I'll actually try to leave before she gets control of it. Do you know she even posted asking for the job? That's quite telling of the personality type. So oppressing, so determined, so needing-to-get-over-herself but she's in her own like-minded company.

The racist comments I can't stomach, I know there's alot of people who don't like Obama or what he's doing but I don't understand racist crap at all.

[Jackaroo]

To me, trolling is spamming, and not knowing when enough is enough, or just being stupid and not funny.

[Spooky™]

"Oh,Wat.Mawn,Ban u son of teh biatcho. I canut spell anyting cuz ime teh troll wit no engliz lessonz is teh grammuwr"