Welcome to the first hands on head-to-head “Troll Combat Course”. During this course you will get first hand tips and information along with a practical hands on practicum on how to go toe to toe with the various trolls you will encounter as you traverse the myriad of paths that course through the vine forest in your quest to become “smarter”.
How To Identify a Troll.
A person is not designated a “troll” simply because he or she happens to disagree with you. So, lets start by identifying what trolls do.
- The Garden Variety Troll...This kind of troll is a propaganda pocket puppet that transmits only. This Troll does not “receive” or process information with the intent of sharing information or creating an atmosphere of sharing, learning, or understanding through listening, or fostering respect and tolerance. They have an ego driven agenda to discredit, dismiss, and misinform. They speak in “sound bites” using inflammatory labels, name calling and making broad brush generalizations. This garden variety troll is relatively harmless, annoying and not very bright. They are stuck in “victim” and most often just wants to vent, rant, and spread their myopic agenda. They are generally simple minded, attention seeking gnomes incapable of independent thought. They are skilled at deflecting direct questions that require independent thought by redirecting pointed questions with inflammatory personal accusations, name calling, using demeaning labels and divisive phrases like “you people”.
- The Evil Spirited Troll…This kind of troll thrives and feeds on dark energy. This troll will use paraphrased information and intentionally twist the meaning in order to elicit and milk angry emotional energy. They will also cut and paste inflammatory comments from one article to another. Once the troll has “hooked” his posting prey in anger…they will continue to escalate in an attempt to suck more and more negative energy from the poster until the poster becomes emotionally drained and/or leaves…or they have successfully hijacked an article. These predatory trolls will often target an author or poster and hunt and feed in packs. These trolls are quite often very intelligent and will mercilessly stalk and attack their prey without warning, leaping between threads and articles. They have no investment in building community and no concern about being suspended or banned. Many of these trolls who are banned under one name, quickly and quietly reincarnate themselves under new name/s and account/s to pick up where they left off. These trolls frequently hide their “friend list” and comments to obscure their true nature and nefarious alliances while collecting “friends” in order to “link” to different groups to continue their negative energy sucking plunder.
A syllabus of topics:
To Feed or Not to Feed…?
This becomes a personal choice based on one’s ability to maintain focus and emotional control. If you are easily offended and tend to get drawn into conflict, it’s probably best to ignore the troll in both categories described above. Don’t engage or allow yourself to get baited into an argument. Don’t Feed the Trolls. However, if you have a thicker skin and a sharp wit, different strategies will be provided to take on the troll.
Don’t Take Yourself Too Seriously.
Trolls prey on people who are easily blinded by their passion, ego, or their need to be “right”. In order to combat the troll head to head, it’s important to have a sense of humor in your arsenal. Nothing is more frustrating for the troll then to become the focus of light hearted humor. If you take yourself too seriously, you will be easily drawn into anger and debase reactionary emotion.
Let Go of The Need to Be “RIGHT”.
Again…it becomes easy for the troll to draw you into anger and conflict if you have this “hook” to grab onto. When you realize you are being “played”…you have to let this need go in order to free yourself from a downward emotional spiral.
A Quick Witted Head is Worth Two Half-Wits in the Bush.
“Out Wit, Out Play, Outlast”…The goals of the troll are to be obnoxious, oppositional, offensive, disruptive, divisive and to incite anger and resentment. Using your “wit” and “humor”…try to turn this agenda around. If a troll pops into an article or thread and lodges an attack, try joining forces with others to level a fierce counter attack with pointed wit and humor to directly combat the negativity.
Don’t Get Angry…Get Curious.
Trolls are a very cloistered, guarded group of gnomes. They like dark places and don’t freely or easily shed light on themselves or divulge too much information about who they are. A pointed personal question makes them uncomfortable and causes their eyes and ears to twitch. They like to see and manipulate, while remaining unseen. Give them the attention they so desperately seek. Ask them questions about their family, their values, their intent…make an effort to “see” them, while avoiding feeding them anger and hostility despite their provocative attacks. Keep bringing the light and focus back to them with questions about who they are, what they need and why? Trolls are disruptive…but they are a part of the landscape. Be proactive and engage until they become deleted by the author, suspended by the management…or until they get bored and leave in search of easier prey. Yes, it disrupts the flow, but it’s temporary. Be flexible and willing to take a diversion until they are eventually dragged off kicking and screaming or silently leave.
Placate To The Point of Absurd.
There is nothing worse for a troll then agreement. With this strategy, it doesn’t matter if you believe it or not…just agree profusely. This is a good time to integrate wit and humor. Nothing gags a troll quicker then agreement, particularly an obviously insincere and absurd agreement. It doesn’t matter that your agreement contradicts what you might have said earlier…just agree with the troll. It immunizes you from their toxic venom and keeps your heart light.
Immediately Report Trollish CoH Violations to Tyler or Calvin.
It’s not uncommon for a troll to fixate and languish on a particular author or topic…particularly if the author is popular, or the topic is emotionally charged, political, or religious. The sooner a troll is reported, the sooner it can be dealt with. The sheer number of trolls lurking within the vine keeps our moderators very busy and it might take some time for them to respond. Which brings us to…
Patience.
You will find trolls to either be irrational, provocative, confrontational and reactive…or cool, detached and calculating toward their intended prey. How you approach a particular troll should be determined by first defining what kind of troll they are with an understanding your particular personal strengths. Above all, maintain your humor and composure. Individually and as a group refocus a humorous light on the troll and be patient until they are either roasted and leave or they hang themselves and are snuffed. Play your “A” game…don’t be reactive and get sucked into their trollish negativity.
This will take some practice…and that’s why we’re here. Hopefully we can chum in some unwitting trolls to practice on. Failing that…we can offer each other our personal insights, experiences and strategies about what has worked and what hasn’t worked in a troll free zone. The topic is loose, an we’ll see where this goes.
Troll Warriors…it’s time to suit up! Don your spandex body armor, foil beanies, pointed foil breast plates and formed foil cups to do battle. Be forewarned…this article is that’s not for the goodie-two-shoes or faint of heart. Lets see if we can flush out a troll or two…The alarm code for a troll is…”INCOMING”. Lets have some fun with this…shall we? Less git it on…
