How to recognise a Troll
An Internet troll is a person who sows discord on the Internet by posting inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community with the deliberate intent of provoking readers into an emotional response often for their own amusement.
Interestingly, it is possible to use an algorithm to identify trolls as research shows that they display specific patterns of behaviour. This might someday prove useful, but this platform is still in beta. Knowing how to identify a troll is more than half the battle.
Signs that you are engaging with a troll
"The truth hurts"
Trolls will want to enlighten you on “the truth” even when that truth is subject to their personal opinion. The truth hurts, and the truth matters more to them than your feelings or perspective, feeding their compulsion to enlighten you.
"I hate to rain on your parade"
Trolls LOVE raining on parades. They feed off the positive energy you exert online and find something negative to take you and your positivity down.
"This is just silly"
Trolls have no respect. Even their words 'with all due respect' are usually followed by something disrespectful. It is acceptable for people to disagree with your opinion, but if they respond to it with disrespect, you are dealing with a troll.
"I'm sorry but..."
Trolls often apologize for the way they are about to mistreat you. They justify their behaviour by believing that the mistreatment is necessary and make themselves feel better about knowingly mistreating you by first apologising.
How to Deal with a Troll
Depending on the abusiveness of your troll, you could use any number of the recommendations below. Often the first step is the only one needed. You should not resort to the fourth without trying the first three first.
First: Do not respond
Trolls just want to trigger a reaction from you. They don’t care about anything. They just get off on your reactions because they’re either lonely or bored or mentally troubled and trolling is a coping mechanism for this. Do not pity the trolls. You cannot save them. They will suck you down to their level to turn you into a troll so that they won’t be so lonely. Save yourself.
Second: Mute the troll
You can tell a troll that you no longer wish to engage with them. You can then press MUTE and pretend that the troll no longer exists. The MUTE feature is still pretty limited, so you will have to pretend as hard as you can. Resist reading any replies from the troll. At this point they will say anything to make you feel compelled to feed them with a response. DO NOT FEED THE TROLLS
Third: Seek help
Trolls can be extremely verbally abusive. We can all pretend that sticks and stones are the only things that hurt us but in truth, it takes a lot of strength not to let this kind of abuse bring your mood down. Trolling can turn into cyberstalking and cyberbullying (intent to cause serious harm or even suicide). If you need to report a particular abuser you can use the dispute resolution channel on https://steemit.chat to seek help. The moderators will look into your concern and advise you on how to deal with your problem. It is highly likely though, that you will be advised to Mute the person and move on. Often this is the most effective approach.
Fourth: Flag the Troll
After they have been notified that you do not wish to engage with them, you can expect a troll to react like a three year old toddler and become extremely persistent in replying to any posts or comments you have, filling up your reply box with troll poo. Flagging the unwanted responses is currently the only way to punish a muted troll that is harassing you.
Warning!
Flagging your troll will result in retaliation flags. If the troll has a reputation higher than you do, they can do damage to your reputation. Even if it seems their reputation is lower than yours, it is still possible that this user has another account which they can flag you with. Flag at your own risk
How to Not be a Troll
If after reading this far you find yourself feeling defensive of your own behaviour, then perhaps you have picked up some trolling tendencies from your years of perceived online anonymity and getting bitten by other trolls. Don't feel bad. We all pick up bad habits. There's a little troll in all of us.
Apart from avoiding the troll behaviours listed above here are some other ways you can prevent yourself from stooping to the level of a troll.
Firstly, always read a post before commenting. Usually when somebody decides to comment on a post before reading it, they have been offended or “triggered” by the title or thumbnail. Things are not always as they seem.
Never judge a book by its cover.
Remember, most trolls don’t know that they’re trolls. In fact, most of them think they are making the world a better place by "calling you out on your BS".
Treat people on Steemit like you are at a dinner party or family gathering.
You wouldn’t say these things to your elderly neighbour.
“That is just ridiculous.”
“How stupid can some people be?!”
“This conversation just makes me so mad.”
“Why the heck can’t people just see that…”
“I want to shoot myself in the face right now.”
“Did you fall asleep on the Dum Dum Bus and wake up in Stupidville?”
For all you know, it could be your elderly neighbour on the other side of the screen. Try to imagine everyone you encounter as somebody you would not wish to cause harm before reacting to words you disagree with.
Steemit allows for five replies in succession on a post.
|My Opinion Post
|> This is illogical
|>> Logic is subjective
|>>> Here are the facts
|>>>> I disagree
|>>>>> I can’t accept that
When you get to the end of this succession of replies, the ‘reply’ button on steemit is no longer available.
At this point you should ask yourself 3 questions.
- Does this argument benefit me?
- Is this argument getting anywhere?
- Should I care if this persons views do not match mine?
In most cases, the answer to all three of these questions will be no.
Step away from the keyboard!
Finally,
If you spend a great deal of your time pretending to be an asshole to get a reaction from people...you aren't pretending. You are an asshole.
—Ed Brayton
I love trolls, i just cant eat a whole one.
nom nom
LOL ... "most trolls don’t know that they’re trolls"
Hi beanz, I agree with what you have said here.
It is definitely what the trolls wants when they mess with you post or you.
They want you to feel different about yourself than what you do.
Also, these trolls mostly do not understand the subject or context and go posting making people feel harassed.
I feel at times its best to ignore them, then another part of me asks me to report them. Yet another thought of shutting the person off and that's where you get dragged into the entire thing.
Here is a question for you: why does it appear to be the case that most trolls are male?
A very true statement.
Good question, but has to be answered with another question. What appearance?
Most of the time the trolls we deal with are anonymous. Whether they're male or female is just a figment of our imaginations either because we have to guess or after they've said so. But even after they show themselves we still don't know for a fact.
For some reason while dealing with a troll here named skeptic I pictured the account holder as a girl. A very young one. I'm not sure if it was the language she used or didn't use but I'm still unable to picture the person behind the account as male.
I think it's possible that we are programmed to picture everybody we read as male until something indicates otherwise. Even in stories women are always described more visually and sensually than men, there is always an indication that the character is female but indicating that the character is male has been deemed unnecessary, since the men are the protagonists of the world.
2 of the worst trolls on this site are definitely male.
The way I see it, if you're not being trolled, you're not being real.
If you can take a trolling you're strong enough to take on anyone!
Says the person that trolls/flaggs my account with @r4fken and @terryrall .
Trolls playing the victim is funny.
This. Actually I play League of Legends, and you often run into people like this. Not only trolls, but also flamers.. My most common reaction is to mute the person and play some happy-go-lucky music. Thanks for the article!
You're welcome. I've never heard of a flamer... Can you allaborate on that?
Excellent post @beanz . I have encountered many online trolls over the years, and I completely agree with your approach. J.
Useful manual. At least better, than just to kill them) Thank you.
You're welcome. Rather than killing the person, I suggest we kill the troll within ;)
@beanz this is just plain funny. Did you come up with this stuff or find it somewhere? If it's organic, BRAVO!
Either way it's funny and easily deserved an upvote.
I like to use the term "assclown" vs. "asshole" myself.
Well it was Ed Brayton who said "asshole" lol. But yes the rest is organic although if you check the links I did have some help putting it together. Thank you so much for the comment :)
Plus I'm guessing trolls don't get laid a lot. Well, they do by their hand puppets but I'm talking about by a living breathing member of the opposite sex(that's not a family member of course).
I like "assclown", asshat and fucktard as well.
@beanz does your flagging of my posts with @r4fken and @terryrall count as trolling?
The victim card you have must be platinum.
Great post!
I hope this helps many people!
Best Regards~*~