The troll and the “n-word”

I’m delighted that you give the words no power. Still it’s sad that rather than “thank yous,” you get kicks in the knees. It’s the good days and standing back that make garden worth the weeds.

I’m sitting think of the genius of the person who designed the troll dolls to have a perpetual bad hair day and no clothes. From this day forward, I’m taking my joy from that.

I need to read your site more often. We manage a community, if that’s the way to put it, as part of our neighborhood news website – commenters plus growing forums – and while it brings us some of our greatest joys, and some of the most interesting content on our site, on occasion it brings us our greatest headaches.

We have some very clear but simple rules – namecalling is not allowed, for example; you can say “that idea is stupid” but not “you are stupid” within a discussion. And I am frequently hit with e-mail from a few provocateurs who claim we are not enforcing the rules equally (and of course call US names as a result), while I in turn point out that we have stated over and over again, if a post violates the rules, it needs to be flagged – but if someone doesn’t flag a violator, I may never see it – but it may truly be, what they consider a violation is NOT a violation. I am very intent on having some rules, though; there are online “communities” in our city that have devolved in a horrifying way – communities related to sites owned by large media concerns, which in my opinion have no excuse for not at least TRYING to keep them weeded, unless they really just don’t care.

Hi Angela,

I started a UGC site for apartment renters to rate/review their apartments, so I know EXACTLY what you’re talking about.

I found solace in the fact that it’s the law of numbers… even if there are only .01% crackpots out there, if you have 10M visitors per year on your site, you’re going to hear from 100 of them. That’s 8 per month and 2 per week.

What helped me was to post a page with kudos and thank you notes from users. Anytime you get one, add it to the page. And when you’re annoyed go read the comments and you’ll remember how you’re helping the other 99.99% of people.

Angela,
I just started reading your blog and will ensure to keep reading in the future. Having thick skin is one of the most important job requirements for any Moderator.
You have to look at these types of people as discrediting themselves with almost every word that they post. These types of individuals are obviously thriving on the fact that they can be anonymous (or try to as much as possible) and hide behind a user ID. You have to realize that 99.999% of these people (IMO) would never do this in their day-to-day life.
It is funny that in my last job, we would sometimes reach out to these people, and have a conversation with them on the phone, and they would act and communicate just fine, but when they go online, they do not hold back. They feel enticed to let it all out. Is it that they are just acting the way that they really feel? Or are they just trying to be noticed in a sea of infinity?
As time moves on, I honestly hope that more and more people treat the internet and their activities as they would their everyday life.
Mike Pascucci

Just came across your this post. Sorry you were on the end of that uncalled for abuse. Sadly there are always those who will seek to stir up trouble and just be disrutive, disrespectful and a plain nuisance. I’ve found one of the most effective ways of putting a full stop to that is with some clear rules for the community. On both my blogs I have detailed disclaimers. The disclaimers state what I will and won’t allow on the blogs, such as name calling, racist and personal remarks and other disruptive stuff. On my personal blog (which is a little more controversial for some) before I had my disclaimer the trolls would routinely come along to stir up trouble. In most cases I’d give them a little benefit of the doubt, referred them to”the rules” then, if they persisted I deleted their offensive comments, then banned them.

I leave 99.9% of comments up, but I consider the overall community is more important than a flamer/troll and so I am quite up front that it won’t be tolerated. People want to discuss their views without being personally attacked. It’s up to me to ensure they can.

Disagreement with comments and opinion is fine, even welcomed – verbal abuse, trolling and personal attacks and name calling are not fine and I won’t have it. Respect for others and myself as the blog owner is mandatory… if it’s too much for some I prefer them to stay away. I don’t moderate comments.

Besides, I don’t have the time nor energy to waste on trolls, neither do my readers.

I am happy to say that the trolls stay well away and I’ve had zero problems since and readers love it. Or maybe they just lurk. At any rate, anonymous or not, if they don’t abide by the blog rules they aren’t welcome and their posts will be removed.

Hope the incident you had then was your last… keep up the good work.