Remember when we went to combat zones we always got a "Know Your Enemy" booklet?
Trolls feed on attention and their repliers agitation & anger.
I found some tips by Googling How to Manage Trolls
Here's one:
How to Manage Online Community Trolls
www.dummies.com/how-to/content/how-to-manage-online-community-trolls.htmlThe lesson across most methods of Troll Management is basically:
1- Ignore them
2- Ban them
This link had some good info on identifying the reasons for Troll behaviors
netforbeginners.about.com/od/weirdwebculture/f/what-is-an-internet-troll.htman excerpt from this link:
The Sad Truths of Internet Trolls:1- Trolls are immune to criticism and logical arguments. True trolls cannot be reasoned with, regardless of how sound your logical argument is.
2- Trolls do not feel remorse like you and me. They have sociopathic tendencies, and accordingly, they delight in other people having hurt feelings.
3- Trolls consider themselves separate from the social order.
4- Trolls do not abide by etiquette or the rules of common courtesy.
5- Trolls consider themselves above social responsibility.
6- Trolls gain energy by you insulting them.
7- Trolls gain energy when you get angry.
8- The only way to deal with a troll is to ignore him, or take away his ability to post online.
Most of us are members or visitors to several forums and have probably seen Trolls before. Some caused a lot of disruption, others were dispatched immediately.
MOW has worked his butt off to pay for and maintain all these sites plus recently adding the Bob Justus and Erv Smalleys sites. He has also chosen 5 moderators and 2 staff members to help keep things running smoothly and provide a good user experience.
Ad viewing eyeballs hopefully generate enough cash to help offset the expense of maintaining these sites and more eyeballs is a good thing. In the past 24 hours we've had 8 Staff Members, 23 Members, 479 Guests on line. That's pretty amazing!
We have a lot of silent visitors that I wish would log in occasionally and join the conversation. Our top 23 posters (all above 200 posts) out of 1274 members have generated 92% of our 31,120 posts since the last time MOW reset the counters.
I've learned a lot and laughed a lot in the past 10 years here and it's a pleasure to be in such fine company!
Pat P.
:clap