A good dose of their own medicine may not make them more friendly as you’ve shown can be the result of patience and kindness, but it sure feels a lot better to me.

There’s no better feeling on Home for me, than coming up with witty remarks and replies that confuse and shame the Troll. Big “wordy-words” are extremely effective against them, as they don’t know what you are even talking about and can only respond with “You r a gays jerk!”. Often, my efforts result in crowds gathering to watch as I shame the Trolls into leaving the area (at which point I happily follow them to continue aggrivating them the way they have been doing to others). Usually, they get upset and ask why I’m bothering them… to which I reply “Because now YOU know how it feels to be on the other end of meeting YOU!”

I think the biggest problem with online etiquette in general is this attitude of not feeding the trolls. What we really need to do is gang up on them so that they see how awful it feels to be on the recieving end. Once they apologize, then and only then should we lighten up on them and welcome them back into the group.

That’s my opinion… but you know what they say about opinions and everone having one.

I do think it’s a great story though, and if it works then power to you. I just don’t have that kind of tolerance anymore for Trolls.

Awesome.

Where’s the like button…?

Nice article, well written and very thoughtful, I enjoyed it. Your article touched on crime just near the end there and I’d like to say something about that in its relation to Home and its various servers (EU,NA,JP etc). I’m from the UK myself and I’m aware there’s plent of crimes happening around here but I think it seems there’s more in America purely because of a higher population. However, the lack of “trolling” in the Asian and Japanese servers might have something to do with their respect. They hold a greater regard when it comes to respect for not only their families, but other people in general (in my observation). Where as in the UK and USA, there seems to be a huge lack of this. Teachers have a hard time, nurses (and doctors to some extent) have a terrible time with the drunken public, and parents and extended family seem to get mistreated as the norm in our countries. Japan (I belive) has a GRANDPARENTS day, as well as Mother’s and Father’s day and to me that says it all really.

I’m in Home every single day now from around 8am to 5pm, and I’ve been a member of Home since it’s launch. Last week was the first time I’ve ever been reported, and I was reported because I stood up for myself. This isn’t out of the ordinary, I ALWAYS stand up for myself, and in all the years I’ve been in Home I’ve NEVER reached for that report button. I’d like to have your faith that trolls are just troubled individuals, but I’ve got a sneaking suspision that our society (the UK and US) are just quickly becoming spoiled, un-diciplined, whiney little brats. Again, great read, thank you for writing this.

My personal opinion is that spending a hour arguing with a troll is not productive and not good to my well-being. It would be like watching Jeff Beck everyday. I don’t need that. Maybe, I’m a selfish, uncompassionate person, but I am nearly 50 and I go to Home to find rest and peace from a long day at work and not arguing with trolls all night. Recently, I have spent more time than usual at CP listen@home and other places that I usually do not frequent and have witnessed the endless arguing that goes nowhere fast and getting involved will only make it worse. Most trolls are playing a game and try to use anything you say against you which just goes no where. Frankly, I don’t have the time nor patience.

For me what works best. if they are not outright crude, I will at least attempt to diffuse the situation like the occurrence at Hudson. If that does not work or the person is crude and offensive, I will completely ignore them. That works best for me.

As to the comment about friendship, I feel friendship is a two-way street and if they are approaching a potential friendship, by being rude and crude, then they are not holding up to their side.

This is the method I use when they refuse to respond to any other approach. If you go back and look again at the pictures in this article, these are all former trolls. When they realized I had their picture and intended to post it, they backed down, apologized, and stopped trolling. I told them that as long as they did not troll me or anyone else, I would not add the captions to those pics with their names.

Try it.

I think Instigator revealed some of it when he said “Bored and looking to start trouble.”

and they win when

they can force you to give up, stand still and just take it without answering back

First of all, I think there is a difference between ignoring them from the start and engaging them in their game of fighting and then giving up. In the first case they lose and in the second case they win.

Some have said they fight fire with fire. I find that that rarely is successful and is actually what the trolls wants (at least for a while until they can get you to give up). I usually throw a little water on the fire.

I was at Hudson and some kid got right up in my face and said that he hated me because my dolphy won. He said this multiple times to me. Instead of fighting fire with fire or engaging him, I simply said, “Hate is a strong word. You don’t really hate me. You just don’t like it that you lost.” He thought for a moment and then said, “Yeah, that’s what I meant.”

Back to the other point that they are bored. This is true and what they want to break their boredom is for you to fight back or react to their misbehavior. Just recently I was in CP and a discussion arose about reporting people one female avatar said that she once was one who caused trouble and had been even taking in by a MOD. I asked if that caused her to change her ways and she said no. So I asked what did and she said that she got tired of being ignored. On that same day I watched a sniffer go from female to female. The attention span of a sniffer is very short as none of them responded to his actions, he finally gave up and was sitting alone by himself on a bench. If I had thought of it at the time I would have sat down next to him and said to him, “Now wouldn’t it be nicer if you treated women with respect and have them actually talk to you rather than ignore you?”

There are other experiences that I have had that also show outright ignoring from the onset works.

So I believe ignoring them works. Not engaging them in any way works. When you report / block them don’t give them any satisfaction by telling them that you are doing so.

Nice article Granny and great for getting discussion going on a very vital topic.