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The Troll Gardener

WEEDING OUT THE TROLLS

By

Old Tom

OT Scripts

It's time for me to explain about trolls.

In many ways, this board is like a Petri dish. That is, it's an environment intended to foster rapid growth. It also means, by the way, that we're being watched and evaluated. (People are looking for new blood and potential partners - who are the up and comers, who has the work ethic?) But it also means we can be very easily infected.

Let me repeat: This post is *not* aimed at anyone. That is, it's aimed at all of us, as a preventative measure. To continue the analogy, this is the antibiotic.

Trolls come here for very specific reasons, and generally have specific agendas. Trolls have identifiable characteristics. Trolls have recognizable posting patterns.

Assuming you can take the heat, troll baiting is great sport. In my case, thanks to the red letters, it's no longer a fair fight - and thus no longer sporting to play with the trolls.

What are the prime feeding grounds for the trolls? (a) Places full of newbies, and (b) places full of ego tossers. Let me address (b) first.

There's a saying in the BDSM world, "You can always tell a Dom, but you can't tell him much." The same applies to rednecks, Vikings fans, or most any other predominantly male group you'd care to slam. If you've looked at other message boards, you'll spot this right away. The verbal sputterings and shoving matches can become quite literally, endless.

The general rule: Don't feed the trolls.

Every time you post in reply, the other person feels obligated to respond. And we continue to go back and forth. If the responder *is* a troll, the troll is looking for the excuse to post again and again.

Why? Often it's simply to be the center of controversy. Some people thrive on attention, and this is a sure way to get it. It's just a message board, what do they care? It's great entertainment, and amazing how people can actually get worked up over such things.

Of course it's not actually amazing.... it's normal human nature.

Such entertainments are not tolerated VNWR: this is our home, a pleasant place to reside, and we have work to be done.

Newbie places are great places for trolls. Naive. Suckers. Easily upset, responding with that knee-jerk reaction precisely as intended. If you respond to the troll, you're being manipulated. It's frustrating to remain silent.... but do you really want to be controlled by the troll, or be the source of troll entertainment? But as a newbie, until you've been scorched by the trolls a time or two, how will you know? Thus, the newbie hangouts are great places for trolling.

Just like in the classic literature, most trolls are not particularly bright. (Else they would know it's time to get a life.) They don't realize the VNWR Community Members are a bit different. We have any number of people with orange tags, watching over the territory. Right, Pastaboy? It's not every board that considers troll baiting mere sport.

Trolls have agendas. Sometimes it's merely to incite controversy. But often as not, it's more. They've come to pull us down, for one reason or another. Incite doubt, suggest a work ethic is out of balance. We don't have time for this - there's work to be done.

People come by who don't see things the same way as Voltar. Disagreement is fine. If they fit the possible troll pattern, they'll be responded to very quickly. If they're legitimate, they'll come through well.

It's so easy to assume the culture is the same here, as on other adult webmaster boards. It isn't. Elsewhere you're on your own, caveat emptor. Here, people watch out for you. We don't have time or tolerance for pissing, spamming, trolling, or tossing our egos about.

If someone hitting the troll pattern is *not* a troll, that's quickly sorted out. But you know what? It's usually a troll.

So. What *is* this troll pattern?

Trolls are outsiders. They make a sudden appearance. Well, sure, *everybody* makes a sudden appearance when they first arrive. But the troll is rarely a completely raw newbie. Suppose we had somebody wander in who knows the distinction between an AVS site and a paysite, but hasn't a clue about content licensing. A completely raw newbie will *not* nail down the precisely correct wording the first try. Raw newbies can't do that.

A newbie asks a question, gets an answer, and ten minutes later has ten more beautiful html pages to show. How long did you take *you* to do ten html pages when you were asking that level of questions? Probably more like ten days, not ten minutes. If the level of demonstrated skill doesn't match the level of questions, something's off key. Watch for a troll, a ringer, or a hidden agenda. We don't *say* anything, but yes, Voltar watches for such things, and so do I, and LadyB, and Jojasa. So does Pastaboy, and he keeps a fresh clip with him at all times. :)

Are non-newbies welcome? Of course. I'm referring to those who intend to hurt us. They *are* in our midst. We *are* the best, and not everybody likes the competition.

Look at it this way. Suppose you're happy on your ten or twenty thousand a month. You hit it bigtime during the boom, when it wasn't necessary to have a clue or business plan or site infrastructure. You're beginning to realize you may be left in the dust by a herd of raw newbies.... and you're really a not very nice person. Think you might be tempted to wander on in, and see what trouble you can quietly stir up? Think you might drop a hint or two to some of your friends?

Far more likely, however, is that you continue to not have a clue about the VNWR Community. Chances are you still assume newbies are grist for the mill, to be sucked dry and rolled over. Such arrogance responds well to the standard troll-baiting methods.

So. What do trolls do? Stir up controversy. If somebody simply steps in and starts spamming or pissing, that's not trolling. It's when somebody posts something inflammatory, that we likely have a troll. You know, like when is it correct and not correct to steal someone else's licensed content.

When called on it, the troll will generally claim innocence. Quite often the troll will apologize for being misunderstood. And darn near every time, will repeat the inflammatory statement (by way of explanation) in the very same paragraph. When you see that, you (a) will be pissed, because your emotions are being manipulated by the troll whether you realize it or not, and (b) need to make a conscious decision.

That conscious decision is how *you* will deal with the troll. You need to consciously realize you're being trolled. Once you've made that step, it's easy to not be upset. Very easy. You can just chuckle and watch nature take its course.

Some poor newbie will take the bait... it always happens. You'll just be glad it wasn't you.

Yes, the best course is to ignore the bait. Don't feed the trolls, and don't feed into their agenda. When it's time for something to die down, just let it die down.

And what about troll baiting as a sport? Trolls, when baited, tend to expose their agenda - and then self destruct. They don't like to be called trolls, treated as trolls, or baited as trolls. They get offended, and expect you to apologize. :) Then they self destruct, pissing and swearing at everybody. Voltar comes along, pulls the posts, and no more troll.

But you must bait the trolls responsibly - and that's why I recommend not baiting them at all. Consider the brand new newbie who wanders in to observe a trollbaiting session in progress. It's hot and nasty and stinks, and *looks* like somebody is getting hurt. Trollbaiting does *not* provide the right environment for welcoming the newbies.... so again, I recommend not feeding or baiting the trolls.

Like spam, just let them sit there and stink. The cleaning crew will dispose of them in due course.

If you have an argument with somebody, take it to email. If somebody's inflaming you on the board, leave it sit, rather than allow them to manipulate you. Trolls have a very short life span around here - don't let them take you down too.

Old Tom