How do you deal with internet trolls?

18 Comments

Everybody hates trolls, those scumbags that spend their lives bullying people online and causing spam chaos. But how do you deal with them?

There are many ways to deal with them, and many work, but what do you do personally?

Flame War! 19
Ignore them. 44
Compliment them - trolls hate this. 11
Tell them that they have no life or friends. 8
Patronise them (treat them like a child) to annoy them. 12
Make friends with the troll. 13
Pretend to be insulted/annoyed to see how gullible they are. 9
Tell them that they fail at trolling. 10
Other (add comment) 10
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Comments ( 18 )
  • dappled
    13 years ago | pl

    I tend to go after them and, given that all they want is attention, it's perhaps not the best way of dealing with it. I absolutely love it when someone is patently trolling and four days after their post aired, there still isn't a single reply.

    Having said that, flame wars can often be amusing. On a British financial advice forum, one chap had posted about his son having frittered all his money away and how he was now unable to afford a mortgage. The people who posted there seemed to be all middle-class, middle-aged and exceptionally polite and helpful. Apart from one single person who took it upon himself to say what everyone else was no doubt thinking. In the middle of a message thread talking about very boring financial dealings, he simply wrote, "Even a squirrel knows to save some nuts for the winter".

    It gradually descended into chaos as the politeness ebbed away and people got increasingly hostile. This carried on for weeks and spilled over into other threads. It was like soap opera. Three people posted the same question, asking about bonds or gilts and someone who was obviously close to snapping point responded to them all with one of the best original lines I've ever seen. He simply said: "Do some research, you internet pigs". I was crying with laughter to see respectable people reduced to outright childishness and hostility.

    After his post, things became all "Lord of the Flies" and they had to first install a mature language filter on the board and finally close it for a week to give everyone time to cool down. When it re-opened everyone was back saying they were "so dreadfully sorry, old chap" to each other and expressing disbelief at how things turned out.

    For me, it was one of the best couple of week's entertainment I've ever had and it all came from that original person's indelicate comment. So I'm in two minds...

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    • D_revolting_enigmaaaaa
      12 years ago

      Ha ha..... YOUR STORY IS AN OBVIOUS ATTEMPT TO FOOL THE MASSES.....HA HA ... ENIGMA AWAY.... NO I THINK ILL WALK THIS TIME

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    • [Old Memory]
      13 years ago

      I've talked with an obvious troll too. He's on YouTube. His username is MercenarySlick, and he absolutely despises every country that isn't the United States. He believes that no country in the world except USA has achieved anything, and he constantly raves on about how Britain has failed and such in a bevy of curse words. Even if you tell him obvious facts about successes around the world, he thinks up some miserable excuse to counter you. He's like a child who hasn't done his homework. An example:

      "Some of the world's best bands come from the UK"
      "All f***ing overrated. None of them match up to Elvis, The Doors and Bread you pommie c**t".

      Yeah, he's really heartless. Wouldn't be surprised if he lives by himself with no one to talk to. Poor guy.

      He's so deluded and childish that everybody's laughing at him as if he were joking, and it's made him very mad and bitter because nobody is really offended because his statements are so untrue. Remember though, if you laugh at a troll, that's good! Trolls hate it when you find what they say funny. Trolls hate: compliments, when you laugh at them, when you patronise them ("awww, poor you, you silly thing"), when you tell them they have no life/friends (it reminds them of it) and when you ignore them. All four work fine.

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      • Legion
        12 years ago

        boy that guy is an idiot

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    • hellboy333
      13 years ago

      Cool story braugh

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  • [Old Memory]
    13 years ago

    People only troll because they cant act that way in reality and so do it in the internet so no one can touch them

    Trolls = Pussies

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  • [Old Memory]
    13 years ago

    IGNORE nothin else works

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  • Angel_in_a_Glass_Dress
    12 years ago

    Other:

    If they're funny, enjoy it.
    If they're sick, hell enjoy it even more.

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  • Mhg8792
    7 years ago

    Don't listen to them, just simply ignore them, their condescending words are not worth your time, come to think about it i definitely advise for you to never believe anything anybody says on the internet because only gullible idiots do that

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  • D_revolting_enigmaaaaa
    12 years ago

    Troll and troll... itd funny to see a troll turn normal ha

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  • bluesun
    12 years ago

    some of them don't fuck off until you give them some nice solid insults.

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  • asdf90091
    13 years ago

    I just ignore them. Trolling on the internet is like pissing in an ocean of piss.

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  • Dricey
    13 years ago

    1, 5 and 8 and a side of fries.
    I don't have the social maturity to ignore a troll. Can't help it. Gotta talk back.

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  • XxKatiexX
    13 years ago

    I actually quite like trolls, they're funny sometimes.

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  • Trollolol
    13 years ago

    Simply tel them they fail at trolling, for there is only a few true trolls in this world, the rest are just pretenders with atrocious grammatical skills.

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  • Uzzie101
    13 years ago

    I don't I think they're hilarious. If they're not being funny, then they're pathetic - and why even let yourself get bothered by something so worthless?

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  • 73h1337idk
    13 years ago

    Oh I just go to lemonparty.org... No seriously DO NOT go there... heheh

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  • forksandspoons
    13 years ago

    Ignore. Just remember, if you don't feed the troll it wall starve.

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