The Troll Whisperer
by keara22hi, HSM team writer
Watching the Dog Whisperer on TV, the seriously disturbed dog that Cesar was trying to tame reminded me of some of the trolls in CP. I decided it was worth the try.
Yes, everyone in here has recommended over and over again that the only way to deal with trolls was Block, Report, Ignore. And yes, that works if all you want to do is get them to stop trolling you. But then they move on to someone else and continue the behavior. Nothing was learned. Nothing changed. And the someone they move to is often a newcomer to Home who is so shocked and disgusted, they leave and never return.
So, I took action. It was worth a try. And, much to my chagrin, I did not whisper. Next time this happens, I will move much further away from the benches so that others will not be disturbed by the events.
I was talking to a friend when a troll approached, shoved in between us, and started the air punches from that stupid dance that the trolls like to use. He was asked to either leave or to join the conversation. Instead, he rained insults and asterisks on us. My friend saw that I was not going to just stand there and take it.
He departed. So, I fought back.
I didn’t move, but I said some things like, “don’t you have any friends in here to talk to? Is that why you behave this way? Were you bullied on the playground all your life so you bring all that pent-up hostility and anger in here? Does it make you feel powerful to be able to bully people in Home and get away with it?”
Bystanders kept PMing me to just shut up and he would go away. But no one said a word to him asking him to stop. Instead I was accused of sinking to his level. Rather like the way Cesar will get on his hands and knees to reach something inside that dog’s consciousness.
Soon, another teenage boy joined him. Yes, one is eighteen and the other one is sixteen, but more about that later.
Now I was in an air-punch sandwich being pummeled from both sides and both were trying to come up with the most devastating insults they could think up. The crowd of onlookers were getting upset – and some were blaming me for fighting back.
So I ran over by the fountain area, outside of their hearing range. Sure enough, the trolls followed me and resumed their attack. I told them I was taking pictures of their behavior and that I would write this for the Forum (without naming names, of course). I asked them to stop. Over and over again for forty-eight minutes.
Finally, one of them left. The other one said, If I would call myself a ********, he would leave. I refused to do so. Then he said if I would just give up, he would leave. I told him I would never give up again. After eighteen months of standing still and letting trolls have fun tormenting me day after day, this was the last straw. So finally he walked away.
Then the most vocal of the bystanders decided to tell me what I had done wrong. The second troll listened from a distance and then came back and said, “All you had to do was give up!”
So we started to talk. Rationally and reasonably. He apologized. I accepted and thanked him. I asked if he would like me to add him? I wound up adding both the bystander and troll #2. Others joined us in a marvelous conversation about favorite games. I value both of them now as friends. And troll #2 will never troll again.
I signed out, and prepared a message to troll #1. I added one of the pictures showing his fist going into my shoulder. Then I sent a second message with the next picture. And I promised that if he did not apologize, I would make sure everyone of my friends would see those pictures.
He sent an apology. And he asked why didn’t I just give up and let them have their fun. I explained that, behind those avatars we are real people and we can be hurt. I told him I accepted his apology, but I was still feeling very hurt and wondering why he chose me to attack. We agreed to meet and talk one-on-one. It was a very intense seventy-five minutes, but we understand each other now. And he has promised he will never ever do those things again. Trolling is not “fun” anymore. Today we will be playing in Sodium together.
By the way, it was two of the bystanders who suggested I write this up and post it here. I have added them, also.
I am a grandmother. I try to help kids – grannies just seem to be geared that way. It looked to me like these were teenagers in trouble who needed help. Any parent will tell you that just letting them run wild might be easier, but in the long run it doesn’t help them learn how to live in an adult world. Yes, most of these trolls are just kids who don’t know how to behave in an adult world. And they want attention. If they cannot get “good” attention, they will go for “bad” attention.
There are many of us, most of us over thirty, who go to Central Plaza each day to help newcomers. Just as we would hope that others would help our children and grandchildren if they were in such a situation.
I returned today and discovered that the sixteen-year-old young man was in Sodium 2 with the ‘bystander’ and the eighteen-year-old young man had left me a nice message. I checked three CP servers – about a half hour each – and found no one trolling in any of them. Each time I did find some newcomers who wanted information or directions, but they were very nice. I did worry though. One of them could not have been more than ten-years-old and is in there alone.
Actually, I wish I could convince the eighteen-year-old to write his experiences in Home: why he got frustrated, why he turned to trolling, what did he get from it, etc. We really need to understand this situation from the inside.
I think Instigator revealed some of it when he said “Bored and looking to start trouble.”
My question becomes, “but why trouble? why attack other people who have done you no harm? Is this a generational thing? Or anger at the whole world for some reason? Or pushing the limits to see how far you can go without being held responsible? Does this carry over into real life, attacking people there also?”
I know it must be a shock to adults to find out that some young people are sitting on this kind of anger, frustration, and hostility. Then something like Columbine happens and everyone says, “Why?”
The ones I want to reach are the ones who troll over and over again, day after day. They are angry, frustrated and bored. They want to make others uncomfortable. They are lashing out at anyone who represents (in their mind) the people who have snubbed them, bullied them, laughed at them, pitied them.
The troll’s triumph is when the victim either (1) resorts to profanity or some other reportable offense (and the troll will report you!) or (2) they can force you to give up, stand still and just take it without answering back or (3) you run or navigate away. If you refuse to give them any of those three ‘wins’ they will up the ante and get even more vicious.
In talking to them, I have discovered that many of these people are frustrated with real life. They either cannot do well in school or they have already dropped out. They have no future in front of them, except for unskilled labor – or petty crime – or their parents supporting them. Life is a bleak prospect of “getting by.”
Can you blame them for being mad at the world? They can see that even some of those who did “play by the rules,” finish school, work hard and try to make something of themselves are out of work and struggling.
So what do we do? How can we help? Does it make it any easier if they can at least talk it out with someone who is non-judgmental?
At HSM, we have readers from every Home region and many of them are now making comments and posting them in the magazine. Several have even submitted articles. The one thing that sticks out is that this trolling problem in NA Home is worse than in EU Home, and that trolling is almost non-existent in Asia Home and Japan Home.
This must mean that there is something going on in our culture that is not happening (at least not enough to be a major problem) in Japan and the rest of Asia. I wish we had a writer with accounts in all four regions who could analyze that and identify the causative factor. Perhaps if we understood why some of the younger people in NA choose to act that way, we could do more to rectify the problem. I also wonder if this situation carries over into real life. Are the crime rates (“personal” crimes: murder, assault, rape, etc.) higher in the USA compared to other countries?
There is no neat way to tie this article up into a nice package with a simple solution that works every time. There are no easy answers because these are damaged humans we are dealing with. But at least we must try.
July 26th, 2011 by keara22hi | 25 comments
Keara is also known in Home as DarthGranny. She is a wicked little old lady with a wild sense of humor.
my friends on PSH have a great idea for getting rid of unwanted types… first have a pet activated.. next tell the troll ” do you want a PSN card” … then goto an exit ( this especially works in the central plaza).. insted of deactivating the active item.. select cancel..and keep walk in forward.. it will let you pass the no return part.. and watch the troll vanish with out incident
Great story, Keara. “Don’t feed the trolls,” is generally a good strategy to follow, but as you point out, it doesn’t really solve anything. So I think of it as one tool of many, and you have to choose the tool that fits the situation. I’m not sure if many people realize this, but many trolls do count on the fact that people don’t fight back. They want to show that they can disrespect you, and get away with it. So once they’ve had their fun with you, they’ll move on to find the next victim.
I will disagree with you on one thing though. I am in all four Homes on a regular basis, and from everything that I’ve seen, the EU Home really isn’t any different from the NA Home. I know that some think otherwise, but 90% of my friends who are also regular visitors to the other Homes feel the same way.
The few times I’ve experienced trolling in EU Home, it came from individuals who came from -- wait for it -- North America.
So in other words, it’s other region hoppers propagating the bad habit. Why is it this behavior doesn’t seem to happen in Home Asia or Japan? Perhaps because in one, there isn’t all that many people to troll, and in both there is a higher language barrier to overcome (most Europeans speak numerous languages, English being amongst the most common second or third language spoken), and the troll in question isn’t ambitious enough to overcome that challenge.
Terra, I can assure you, there are native EU Home users who are trolling. I’ve been told such by other EU Home users. Also, I understand simple French, German and Spanish msyself.
Trolling does happen in the Asian and Japan Homes occasionally, but usually it’s from visiting NA or EU Home users. You can tell by the languages they speak. But usually you can tell just by the way they behave, because NA and EU visitors usually stick out like sore thumbs even if they aren’t misbehaving.
I would agree with Aeternitas. My wife and I have been to each of the other regions and I would even state that the EU region is the worst for trolls. Yes, even worse than NA. My wife was in CP in the EU region and they swarmed and smothered, sending add requests, sex cam messages, etc. all within minutes of entering the area. It was unbelievable. When we go to the Japan region it is much different. You can tell by how they behave as Aeternitas has said. People actually sit and watch what is going on in the theater without any chatter whatsoever. People bow. They don’t run up to people and dance on top of them. At least I have not seen it. I have used translate.google.com to communicate where English is not spoken.
I don’t care to understand why Trolls do what they do, we have too many trying to understand Misbehavior and the problem only get worse.
In my view, the Trolls are a Mob, and one must put a Mob down, the Harder the better. A Mob is like a swarm of insects, unable to think for themselves but as a group, and the group acts as one until something breaks them out of the Collective Mindset and forces them to think like an individual once again.
Mobs are also contagous bringing in outsiders to join in, even if they would never acted that way before.
Once word gets out that Sony Bans a few Trolls, others will take notice and change their ways or risk being Banned themselves.
I don’t care to Understand the Trolls as they themselves don’t understand why they do what they do; I just want them gone.
Are you serious?”Once word gets out that Sony bans a few trolls,others will take notice and change their ways or risk being banned themselves.” is something that just isn’t true.I could explain the process where a troll can just make a new account and just continue on it’s way.And I should probably make it clear that any,I truely hesitate to use this word in this context,”professional” troll would never be caught using their main account or indeed any account they’ve spent time or cash on.I should also point out that I know the process even though I’ve never been a troll so this isn’t exactly highly classified insider troll knowledge,anyone can do it and many do for other than trolling reasons.It just so happens to work in the troll’s advantage.Further if you “just want them gone” I’d ask how do you hope to accomplish this?public executions in central plaza perhaps?This seems to be a rather intolerant view,and to me at least,a hope that some1 else will do all the hard work for your benefit,in this case it would probably be Sony picking up the slack.And really,must all mobs be put down?If it weren’t for the hard work of a few mobs in history we in the U.S. and the ppl of France would probably still be “Loyal subjects” of kings.I’d agree that some mobs can get out of hand but I don’t believe their very existence is a problem,it’s the actions they take that make them either a “Lynch mob” or a peaceful assembly of law abiding citizens sharing ideas.
Sounds like you found yourself a mild hardcore troll and turned him into a productive member of Home society.I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again:For the moment this is the best we can do to help out.It’s far from being always successful but it’s better than doing absolutely nothing,which just passes the problem off to some1 else.It’s time consuming,as you found out,and can end up being a total waste of time but occasionally you find some1 that was either just bored and looking for fun or some1 that was really just trying to make friends in an awkward way.There seems to be a train of thought that thinks that a person will be perm. worthless based on it’s present trolling actions.This takes no account of man’s/woman’s ability to change,to do better in the future,in short a persons ability to repent and see the error of it’s ways.I’ve also said that the thought of losing friends over their trolling is a much,much better determining factor than banning,as it currently operates,will ever be.So as long as you remind your new friend of this once in awhile I think his trolling days are over.Congrats granny,your perseverence paid off and I wouldn’t be surprised if this person turns out to be 1 of your most loyal friends as you both now have a very good understanding of what makes each other tick,to an extent.I’m not saying this is the only way to go about it everytime,as Aeternitas33 pointed out it’s just 1 of the many tools in the bag of tactics 1 can use in this situation,but I still believe it has the highest % chance of success,especially on the more hardcore trolls.Some of my best friends started their Home careers as trolls and are now using their talents on more positive outlets.This can succeed,it’s long hard work at times but not many great things come about easily.
a troll is a troll is a…..etc. there really is no easy solution to them. get rid of one, there will be more. it depends on your character and ambition. i myself take them to task everytime. my friends find it a wonder to watch me work. usually start with the usual. please leave, not interested, yadda yadda. depending on the situation, i switch hit. also my mood at the time. 7 out of ten i can almost always out insult them, but in a way thats usually hard to report. i always get the feeling some mod is actually chuckling reading threw my comments. mine are usually so fast and wicked, besides my typing speed, that they HAVE to give up. cant keep up. and the punching or ‘porking’ dance,i just side step, not long moves, just step to one side. they get bored fast, a step is easy to trying to set up a dance constantly. the worse offenders i switch on. insult the bejesus out of them, realize its feeding it, so i switch tactics. suddenly as about thier child hood. are they the fat kid in the back of class that ate paste? was it uncomfortable being stuffed into lockers? etc. then even deeper if i feel like it. but yes, i agree on other responses. hong kong home is deserted, the only time i had any trouble is of course a north american. on eu, the same, but there are alot of males from other countries on there that get aggressive. i think probably the only MOST disturbing troll to me is the silent one. stands there, no actions, you talk, you plead, you move. nothing, just follows. to me thats the scariest one of all. just what is this guy like in real life? yeesh.
oh, and i dont believe in that ‘stooping to their level’ crap. to me that’s just being a pacifist. either their to afraid to fight back or cant or not quick enough. i’ll fight fire with fire, just depending on the situation and how it progresses. and this ‘cant be bothered/im on home for enjoyment/etc.’, well, welcome to real life. crap is going to follow you everywhere. deal with it. put it this way! your in a mall, looking in store windows. some guy comes up and just stands there, doesnt respond to anything, just stares. you move off, he follows. he starts poking you. not hard,just some goofy poke in the shoulder, over and over and over. seriously, what do you do? run? call security? hide in a store? people throw out the lines like ‘thats different, thats real life’. and the difference is…..? so is home. real people, real problems,real issues. deal with it, hunny bunny. don’t go bury your head in the sand. an example of home being real? how many times have people in REAL life been bothered or assaulted while people stood by. ‘dont want to get involved, they’ll pick on me next,im not going to be the next victim, if i dont say anything or just move off, they wont pick on me. its the fight of flight symptom. me, i wont back down, not one bit. no matter how many. its sink or swim, baby!
On a slightly related note,the 3 ways to win which you pointed out in this article are basically the same ways to win in a “fam” fight in a public space.Which is why they can last for quite a long time if neither side wants to make a deal.In Home,as is probably true in most virtual worlds,words are the weapons that are used most to try to harm,embarress,intimidate,foil,cause internal disruptions or to otherwise put the opposition in an untenable position.As backarch pointed out,whosoever can out-type and/or out think their opponent with well timed quick-witted retorts will have an extreme advantage when it comes to these types of engagements.Personally I find large scale public space fam fights to be rather counter-productive as they tie up your members from doing more useful/fun things but occasionally you will run into one that is not only truely interesting but produces some immediate and dramatic results so if I do happen to stumble upon 1 of these things I’ll usually watch til’ the outcome is decided or it becomes a boring exchange of mom jokes or a contest about who is more ghetto.
My experience has been very different with trolls. I think there are two very good points you make but my interpretation is different.
and they win when
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.
Well in the case of the dolphy kid you really didn’t ignore him,you engaged him and corrected his erroneous thinking which is really what I’m advocating.The”fighting” is usually just a rather intense discussion about their actions and eventually it either gets to the point when they tire out and come around to your way of thinking or they storm off to stew for awhile and think things over before any attempt is re-made.The point about them wanting you to react because they are bored is kinda what i’ve been getting at all along.Once they’ve talked with you for a few hours about,most likely,a wide range of subjects they will usually see that you are an interesting person and worthy of being on their friends list.After which you can then make it quite clear that any further actions of that sort would be viewed dimly and would harm your friendship.I do agree that a total ignore right from the start can work occasionally,but for a truely hardcore troll,by which I mean some1 that’s ready, willing and able to spend countless hours attempting to troll you,I believe the engaging tactic works better.I rarely believe in absolutes when it comes to dealing with ppl,few solutions work for every1 in every case no matter what the topic at hand is.The point I’ve been trying to make is that when you just totally write ppl off based on the very short amount of time,even if it is a few hours,does not only them but yourself a disservice.You may be turning your back on your next best friend on a faulty perception of them based on what transpired before either 1 of you knew anything about the other.Taking time to get to know some1 a little before deciding they aren’t worth your time can have positive benefits for the both of you.
You are absolutely right. There is not one solution that will solve all troll problems. Sometimes ignore them will and sometimes giving them a little guidance works. I agree that if you can peacefully convince a troll to understand your view then that is a great cause to pursue.
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.
I can respect that honest assessment,really everyone needs to decide for themselves how much a troll will be affecting them.I myself find my own advice to be tiresome at times as there are an endless supply of these guys/girls and to try to change them all would require the patience of a saint.You kind of have to do a rather quick calculation when deciding whether or not to even attempt it.Something like does your short term happiness and potentially your sanity,let’s call it S,plus the trolls future potential in your opinion,let’s call it W,equal the time and effort it’s gonna take to convince him to change,let’s call it T.So you will have to calculate does S+W=T?It’s something each person has to answer for themselves,quite often it doesn’t add up and then in those situations I’d fully endorse doing nothing,after all some of us are on Home to have fun and meet new and interesting ppl so this has more appeal than someone strictly here for the games.
Or to be more accurate the above equation should be S+T=W and should be read as such,Does your short term (un)happiness and (in)sanity plus the time it’s going to take to change a troll equal the troll’s potential worth to you as a person and/or friend.The answer to that can only be supplied by the person in that situation and may be different from time to time or every time.
I have a little trick that works like a charm: I open up my camera so that a sign appears with my name that I am taking pics. Then I tell them I am taking their picture and intend to post it in this Forum. And that this Forum, the HSM Forum, is read worldwide. They usually panic and run when they hear the camera clicking. Or they start pleading with me to stop.
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.
Lol,1 more tactic in the bag of tricks.
I prefer to tell them that they don’t impress me, or anyone else who happens to be there. The more they go on the dumber they look, and I let them know it. To everything they say and do there’s a logical response that highlights their lack of intellect and just plain ridiculousness. Most trolls aren’t very sophisticated. It’s pretty easy to turn their behavior on them and make them feel… Well, stupid. That’s my recommendation. Just twiddle the thumbs and say “wowie…” Let them know you’re bored by their behavior and they aren’t getting a rise out of you or anyone else. Most bystanders who are used to trolls and ignoring them will help by just saying nothing, or casually agreeing with you. The troll looks around and sees one or two people saying “you don’t impress me…” and everyone else simply ignoring. I’ve had much success with this approach. If what they want is to “win”, looking like an idiot and having everyone who’s watching saying nothing and looking bored makes them feel inferior and makes it clear that they aren’t going to get the kind of attention they seek, this is the opposite of a win for them. I commend you Darth on your desire to help them, and some may indeed be on the wrong path. I could be wrong here, but I don’t see most of them as troubled youth. They’re just acting out in the most immature, easiest, and selfish way they can think of (because they aren’t capable of thinking up any other way to get attention). In fact, I’m willing to bet that most of these kids have parents with money who hand them everything they want and treat them as if they could do no wrong. They’re sitting on their asses in front of their TV stuffing potato chips in their faces and annoying people because it’s “fun”. Simple minds, simple pleasures. Challenge them, not by talking to them for hours (this is attention), but by letting them know that what they’re doing and saying is dull, foolish, mindless, and short-sighted. Give them something to think about as they walk away in utter anticlimactic defeat.
“Give them something to think about as they walk away in utter anticlimactic defeat.”
Awesome.
Where’s the like button…?
An edit button would be nice too. LULz!
Great article keara!
Hrmmm, lots of comments above me, will I be read? Well, I’m throwing in my penny’s worth anyways! Here goes…
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.
Well I can see that there are many different ideas here from many view points. I myself feel like you have to take each incident as it comes and do you best to make Home a better place, whether it means reporting or it means trying to turn them into better people, it depends on the situation you find yourself in. I agree with Orion in part, because like him I really don’t want to spend a lot of time on this. I have too many other things going on in Home and outside of it to do that. I think what you are doing granny is wonderful and I commend you for the effort, that being said, I do try to ask them to be pleasant when confronted, and if they refuse I report them.
What I absolutely love about Trolls is the clear fact that they are of low intelligence and can’t keep up with me. I will sometimes go out of my way to Troll the Trolls when I see them causing trouble for myself of other innocent members.
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.