Morning Admin. I pulled this quote from the Double ID thread, as I did not want to go off topic.

So Trolls, and let's speak about the issue and use no names. I find trolls to be posters that rant endlessly about the same thing, boring the other valued members to death, so the interesting members fade away, one by one.

I have suggested that folks just choose to ignore the trolls using your ignore feature but some folks don't like to do that.

I guess what I am asking here admin, is that being a Troll is a reason to be banned too, is it not?

How do we best prove that someone is a Troll? Trolls are more subtle and sometimes it is a group of posts and not just a single post that 'proves' the case.

Anyway, anyone wanna jump in and give me a definition of Troll to see if admin agrees w/it.

I gotta get my dd ready for Drama camp, of all things. The irony amuses me.

And remember, no names please - we are just trying to work through the issues, not certain posters.

Sincerely,

Meon

Being a Troll and making other people not want to visit are pretty much the same thing and good reasons to get banned...

You do not have to prove someone is a Troll. We will know if they are a Troll or not when we read their posts

Do not ignore trolls hoping we will notice they are being ignored. We do not know who is being ignored.

If a post, or poster, bothers you just hit the Notify Moderator link on all annoying posts... note why the post annoys you... and suggest a course of action...

Or just send me a PM

It is that simple :-)

OK, but that means I have to read the annoying posts. Will wait till I am up to it. Others out there who are reading already, please follow Admins directions.

Trolls are no fun.

Well.
What can I say?
If you do not read them... how can you judge the posts as annoying posts?

Not all people dislike or like the same people.

Complaining about posts you do not read is not recommended :-)
I rarely read the off topic forums so hardly anything there annoys me. Do not get many notification with complains for posts made there either...

If it bothers you use the Notify Moderator link located on the lower right side of every post.

Main rule about dealing with trolls is not to feed the trolls by giving them public attention.

Do you fish? I think the term is related to fishing. To "Troll" means to allure, to fish, to entice or to bait.


Internet trolls are people who fish for other people's confidence and, once found, exploit it.

Trolls are various in nature and the type of damage they do ranges greatly, such as:

* Cause irritation to others
* Disrupt an online group
* Steal money
* Obtain credit card details
* Build false hopes
* Abuse

A Troll is a person who aims to have 'pleasure' at your expense. There are five main types of trolls. The first four are people who pretend to be someone that they are not - they create personae that you think are real, but they know is fictitious.

Playtime Trolls: an individual plays a simple, short game. Such trolls are relatively easy to spot because their attack or provocation is fairly blatant, and the persona is fairly two-dimensional.

Tactical Trolls: This is where the troller takes the game more seriously, creates a credible persona to gain confidence of others, and provokes strife in a subtle and invidious way.

Strategic Trolls: A very serious form of game, involving the production of an overall strategy that can take months or years to develop. It can also involve a number of people acting together in order to invade a forum.

Domination Trolls: This is where the trollers' strategy extends to the creation and running of apparently bona-fide goups like another private board where they can have more control.

Psycho Trolls: These trolls have an unconscious psychological need to feel good by making others feel bad. Such people may use their real names on the internet, and they may not even realise that they are "trolling".

Dealing with Trolls

Here are some ideas to help avoid being deceived by trolls:

* Before you invest your trust in someone - either emotional or financial trust - you should verify their bona fide nature from multiple known, reliable and independent sources.

* Ignore and report any communications that you think are suspicious.

* beware of off board messages that praise and flatter, or seem to evoke sympathy. If you feel yourself beginning to like someone, ask first: how much do I know about them from real life sources?

* if you do get involved with anyone via the internet, seek out verifiable data. Real people will provide information about themselves that is open-ended and leads to a myriad of sources which enable you to verify their genuine status.

* if you are concerned by postings, write to the administrator about it or use the Notify Moderator links

To keep it simple. If a post offends you, if you notice Spam, if you think a post is an effort to scam, if you think a post was made by a Shill... all you have to do is Notify the Moderator. Please do not reply to those posts and do not quote them...

True.

I used to read the posts but now I do not, as I have placed them on ignore. However, skipping over posts disrupts the flow of the thread.

That said, thank you for the clear definition. I should have followed your directions prior to giving up and just ignoring those posters and staying away from those threads.

Hopefully in the future, others will follow your advice/directions and prevent the loss of quality of certain threads.

I do understand that a Troll can not simply be designated as a Troll due to personality differences.

Regards,

Meon

You know, there were so many times I hit Notify on the same person that I didn't know if I was going to get deleted or him! lol

Yeah, I watch for people that overpraise someone, I watch for idiots who slam someone and end the posts with "Have a Great Day" or something stupid like that, and I watch for people who joined yesterday, now have 34 posts and not one post says anything other than what the person said before them or perhaps a "me too!" added in for good measure. I also watch for small groups where each person has 5 to 30 posts and they are all agreeing with each other so much they may as well be one (and probably are).

I spent years on Newsgroups and we had members that were so good at finding trollers, spammers, shillers, etc. that I was highly impressed. I'm a suspicious kind of person when it comes to this site because of the number of thieves trying to steal my money when I first joined. I think it's incredibly important to protect the new members from losing large amounts of money because they don't understand how the site works yet. So if I'm wrong sometimes I'm okay with that. I'd rather be wrong than watch 8 or 10 people lose money to those scumbags.

And for my money, I'd say we have more people here that just want to start trouble for no reason than we do scammers.

* beware of off board messages that praise and flatter, or seem to evoke sympathy. If you feel yourself beginning to like someone, ask first: how much do I know about them from real life sources?
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This is where I went wrong. This is a tactic widely used.

Excellent advice Music!

Hi Nova,

I copied and pasted from admin's list. I think there are some that come on here and they can fool us.

One person was so nice and actively posted for six months before she started scamming people.

I would have truly missed out on personal and objective wisdom if I had not seen this post. I am so impressed with Admin's knowledge in these areas, it boggles my mind.

Don't even start you guys......no I'm not trolling.

I liked it too. Found it via a Google search :-)
I found those definitions and tips online and edited them a bit...

I will make the word "Troll" and active link and will link it to this thread :-)

Well, good job! Informative and insightful....

I posted this a while back, Its also on the net, and describes a trolls purpose on blogs, discussion boards, and political forums. Since there's a thread on the subject, here it is.

Will do! I will refrain from ever calling any one out, again! That is exactly what a Troll wants--que no?

I can name one now, but the posters are taking pretty good care of him.....not. Has alot of stamina though. Nasty, one sided, talks to himself. Well, that's not particularly unusual, I guess. Politics, you know.

I find this thread to be interesting. and Soho, you are funny you read [at least] my mind when you said you are not a Troll. If I could add one more trait, IMO, on this board I experienced a popular "grand poobah" (sp?) that did not agree with something I posted, and it wasn't even important. for the next two days it appeared that he followed my posts around the board and whatever I said, he or she found a way to discredit my post. that seemed Troll-ish to me. I've seen it done to others, too, same poopah. It keeps people from wanting to post.

heredia, I wasn't referring to myself. The person I talked of as Troll I left unnamed. When you feel someone is "following" you around the board and harrassing you, send a pm to Admin if you have enough posts to pm, explaining what you think is happening and linking to the post he/she made if possible.

Or hit the "Notify" button on those posts.

There are websites, work places, supermarkets, workplaces, with this sort of persona.
Not being a Native New Yorker, I simply ignore or Don't read or acknowledge them. IPoD it, skip it,are Utmost important things.
Why waste time as a topic. The Troll don't waste time looking at it. Or he/she WINS wasting your time, entertaining them. And knowing they Wasted our time Is satisfying. Insulting them is just making them laugh. As a HAM Radio Operator we study an FCC manual and iT says acknowledging them is their satisfaction. Don't. Your massaging their ego!

TROLLS..........INDEED

When reporting someone's post does it allow to give a reason for doing so? I'm just asking because occasionally I see Troll and spam posts but I've also noticed quite a few posts where people are clearly posting things that indicate they participate in recreational prescription drug abuse. Although I try and keep to myself and not chastise others, I think posts like this detract from the 'community' as they could possibly be seen by someone who would then lump us all in the same category so to speak as the poster. For this reason I wouldn't mind reporting offending posts but I'm unsure if I'm able to note why I'm doing such to help mods out?

yes it does. i reported a bunch of spam posts sometime last week and there was a blank field where you could type in why you were reporting the posts.

Cool, thanks for answering.