Mini-Thread: How to Combat TrollsiDaire is here to give you a quick instruction of how to combat trolls. Believe me, I know a lot about this topic as multiple forum members know. I am an expert troll. My license can be found under your doormat when you go to sleep at night and before you wake up in the morning. Now, we need to take a few notes on how trolls work before we really get to defeating them. Let's compile the information I know:
- Trolls seek a reaction, usually negative, in order to gain joy.
- Trolls come in many shapes and sizes, some being persistent and others quitting too early.
- Some trolls have to be banned, kicked, or silenced for them to truly get the message.
- Trolls can start firing given any trigger: your conversation hitting a certain topic, the minute another person starts chatting, etc.
- A troll of a higher skill will commonly defeat and silence a troll of lower skill.
Now that we've gathered this information, we can summarize trolls. Trolls are sadistic, parasitic, hot-headed, contentious deadbeats who only get off their rear-ends to go change chatroooms utilizing the mouse. There are very easy solutions to defeating these types of people. Some would consult a mod. Others would try to talk to the troll. I personally prefer the use of the mute button. But, if none of these seem to work/ you feel as though you need to prove your superior, you could always attempt to combat the troll in terms of flaming. Couple of things must be said:
- Stay away from trolls who know you or any of your personal info. You don't exist as soon as they come up. Report it to a mod.
- The skill of the troll usually has a positive relationship with the troll's age while the troll's persistence as a negative relationship with the troll's age. So, as trolls grow older, though they gain more skill in trolling due to an increased maturity level, they also lose the will to troll due to the same factor
- Combating a troll can result in your ban rather than the troll's.
- Depending on the moderators in the room (if there are any) or the people in the room, you may not even have to combat the troll.
In a flame war between you and the troll, it's best to insult the troll in a way that displays that you are still the mature one of the conversation while also being the more humorous one of the conversation. You need to both humiliate the troll while not falling to his level. I can't give you words exactly on how to combat a troll because everyone thinks differently (so one thing I say might never be said by another person), but you just have to be both clever and smart. Once you are starting to win the flame war, the troll will show some signs of weakness, similar to the monsters in Monster Hunter (by Nintendo):
- They will start recycling insults.
- They will take longer to type in between messages.
- They will start to seek sympathy by either the other people in the chat or the moderator.
- They'll switch the topic to something they know you can't work with (in that case, switch it back with some wordplay).
If the troll shows any of these signs of weakness, it will be swept under the rug very soon. Now, you can either do this yourself by continuing to cleverly insult him, or, a fraction of the time, you can just leave it to chat, which immature enough, will join the side of the winner and start flaming the loser, thus doing your work for you. Well, this happens to be one of my many fairly pointless threads, but I hope it helps you well. Goodbye people.
