Hatrack River Forum: New column: Lurking under the forum, or, how to deal with trolls

This is topic New column: Lurking under the forum, or, how to deal with trolls in forum Books, Films, Food and Culture at Hatrack River Forum.

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Posted by Chris Bridges (Member # 1138) on :

Lurking under the forum, or, how to deal with trolls

It is now a federal crime to annoy someone over the Internet. Anonymously, I mean. I'm still in the clear.

Packaged in with the Violence Against Women and Department of Justice Reauthorization Act signed last week, the law states that anyone who uses the Internet 'without disclosing his identity and with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten" will be fined or tossed in the pokey for a couple of years, or both. Goodbye, LiveJournal. We hardly knew ye.

The intention was to reduce cyberstalking, but the law is worded vaguely enough to use against the Web's most reviled inhabitants: shady, skulking people whose sworn duty is to annoy others. People whose only goal is to disrupt and infuriate, who pride themselves on ruining any chances of civilized discourse. I'm talking, of course, about radio talk show hosts.

Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :

Sah-weeeet.

quote:
Respond to the useful information in the troll's post and ignore the rest.

I adore answers that are both appropriate and the most likely to result in the best outcome, all things considered.

It's really a good way to approach any response one crafts, at least in the forum format. IMHO.

Posted by Parsimony (Member # 8140) on :

I can think of a few hatrackers who may be serving time soon.

--ApostleRadio

Posted by El JT de Spang (Member # 7742) on :

Awesome.

I'm gonna stick with ignoring the trolls for now, but I like the tips.

Posted by Chris Bridges (Member # 1138) on :

It's tough to do, but it's the only method I've ever found that was effective even some of the time.

One self-proclaimed troll at the Serenity boards was ravaging the place and I got him, eventually, into a discussion of the movie. After a few exchanges he even commented on it. "Wow, if I were you I'd have yelled at me by now. Do you have kids?"

Posted by aspectre (Member # 2222) on :

It's worded vaguely enough to use against spammers. While they may claim a different intent, they also know that what they do is considered to be annoying by the vastly overwhelming majority of folks who receive their missives.

Posted by Goody Scrivener (Member # 6742) on :

One would wonder which trolls you had in mind when crafting that particular column... [Smile]

Now where's our ignore poster button? LOL

Posted by Scythrop (Member # 5731) on :

so...who likes pie?

[Wink]

Just kidding Chris - a great column, as ever.
cheers
t