Don’t feed the trolls
Once again, I want to remind people to ignore trolls.
I plan soon to be getting enough time to redesign the blog in order to better deal with them. Till then, the best thing to do is ignore them rather than engage them. As a reminder, the following are banned trolls: loki, alphie, justaguy, and stevie. Of course, several of them do not stick to these names, so it’s only by IP and other details I’m privy to that I can identify them if they do so.
The new system should circumvent the present problems and make it far more difficult for trolls to get around the bans. Till then, I ask, once again, that people simply not respond to any troll comments, even those that seem like they invite a rational argument. It won’t stay rational or polite for long.
[ADDENDUM: Just for clarification, I want to state that once a troll has been banned, all comments by that troll will be deleted, including ones that seem reasonable and would otherwise be acceptable. Commenting here is a privilege, and once you’ve lost it, you’ve lost it.]
But sometimes if you do it just right you can expose their stupidity, whilst enraging them to the point where they dare not leave another comment for fear that they will get worse the next time.
That’s not been my experience. These particular trolls have dedicated a goodly portion of their lives to trolling, and are loathe to give it up.
Not only do I not respond, I don’t even read troll comments. There is a certain ‘troll accent’ that allows easy identification.
Justa: See, you can’t go around insulting the hostess; she’s bound to show you the door.
I’ll try to avoid feeding them.
Steve: justa’s been shown the door. The thing is, he’s comes in through the window, and the chimney, although he’s no Santa. He well understands the difference between trolls such as him, and people who respectfully disagree and present reasonable arguments that don’t align with mine. I have no problem with the latter here; in fact I encourage them. This is so obvious as to be not worth stating. But trolls aren’t the least bit interested in that, although as a strategic ploy, they will accuse the blogger of damping down argument. It’s a form of projection: it’s they who wish to end argument here, by mucking up the comments section.
I don’t know, neo, you always seem to have an especially bad infestation. I think that conjunction of six little letters, n-e-o-c-o-n, makes them see red and froth spittle.
I got banned at my home address, but not here at work during the Bonfire of the Trolls after election night….
I think I got banned for feeding the trolls.
I’ve not tried to log on or cause trouble ‘cuz I’m not a troll–and it’s neos blog. 🙂
“troll accent”
Heh. Yea I’ve noticed that myself and have become pretty good at detecting and skipping over them. But it would still be better if they were gone
I recommend, Neo, that you recommend that people actually stop reading the comments from these kinds of people. Some people cannot ignore an unjustified provocation easily. Or, Neo, I recommend that you recommend, that they keep their replies short. 1 or 5 sentences, at most. This helps keep the volume down and sets limitations that people can follow, if they either can’t ignore the trolls or can’t stop reading their comments.
If you get banned cause you responded, Gray, then you should email neo to get unbanned. Unless you’ve been acting really abusive, Neo won’t ban you. In fact, she is rather quaintly tolerant in that department. Unlike some other people I can name. I don’t think anyone can describe neo as the “Enforcer”, you know.
Define ‘troll’.
Neo:
Faster Please
troll=disloyal opposition.
Good for you, neo-neocon.
Trolls=roaches.
Troll = neoneoconned, who thinks he knows more than everyone else and adopts an arrogant, condescending, and/or abusive tone whenever he deigns to share his worldly views.
neoneoconned–I have plenty of discussions with people who disagree with me, people who I do not regard as trolls or exhibiting troll-like behavior. It’s not so much what is being said as how it is said. For some people, especially if they are closed-minded and defensive about a deeply held view (from any point on the political spectrum), they adopt an insensed, offensive tone in their discussions. These people apparently feel attacked as a person, that there core values and logic are being challenged, and discussion with them deteriorates quickly from event and substance focused to a personal level with nastiness, name-calling, etc. Does any of this make sense? (I’m going to guess that it might, but that you see it true of the commenters here and not of yourself.)
Done. It does get tiring after a while.