Monday, April 23, 2007

Trolls Make Me Grumpy

They really do.

Trollitude is unkind.

I hate unkindness.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Main thing to remember about trolls is not to feed them - in other words totally ignore them and they'll soon disappear. It's your reaction that feeds their sick little souls, and if they don't get a reaction they'll not hang around. Delete them and move on.

k said...

Whoops! Let me clariy: No troll here. Pretty Lady seems to have acquired one or two who recently raised their ugly heads. The second one just started out as a nasty commenter but perhaps their high-minded threat to never come back wasn't entirely correct.

I've always despised them. But outside of some spambots I deleted, I've never once had a comment here that even approached trollitude. I'm very glad for that, too.

PL's recent experiences got me remembering what happened to Livey, and how truly horrible that all was. I've heard of other nasty situations too; a few years ago, one blogger got *outed* and lost her job in the process. Recently a tech blogger - not political or controversial at all - got some extrememly awful things, death threats and all, done in a truly *stalking* manner. That woman got really scared.

Frankly, I don't blame her. We'te not all teflon out here. I know some people say, It's just the internet, toughen up. But, sorry. Trolling is not excusable to me, and I'll never overlook it. I object.

I just hate that kind of behavior.

Morris, that sounds like exactly the right approach for me, if I ever did get a troll. Hopefully, I wouldn't have one that keeps it up no matter what.

Trolling is stalking behavior, very much so. Not rational at all. Sometimes if you just ignore them? It makes them worse. When they don't get that reaction they seek, they sometimes decide not to give up, but instead to try harder.

Ick!!!

ick ick ick!!!

Northwoods Woman said...

Oh I'm glad I read the comments before I posted mine. I thought I'd given you a troll! You and Nancy are the two who helped me get past that shit. Thanks!

Anonymous said...

I should clarify too. *Most* trolls can be got rid of by ignoring them, but obviously if anyone is unfortunate enough to have a mental case decide to fixate on themselves, then stronger measures should and can be taken. There are ways to deal with these whackos, but I won't post here so as not to forearm them.

k said...

Livey, you're extremely welcome, my dear! Any time. It felt GOOD.

morris, this sounds intriguing. I hope I'll never need to know how to do it. But if that day comes, I'll be knocking on your virtual door.

Judge Well Ye Wolves said...

Trolls waste time. That's what bugs me. They spend time on minutiae, are inefficient if they really want to know something, and like bugging people.
Wait a minute, that makes ME a troll!
Actually, they break in with some non-sequitur remark that disrupts and wastes time. Some of us ain't got that much left, so we resent giving it up to a troll.

Anonymous said...

"Actually, they break in with some non-sequitur remark that disrupts and wastes time. Some of us ain't got that much left, so we resent giving it up to a troll."
Well said. I'm certainly heading fast towards that category - old farts club status, I mean.. :-)

Pretty Lady said...

Oh, k, you are my sweet Dragon Lady.

For the first time, I actually exercised my Site Owner privileges and deleted a troll comment. Actually two of them. I honestly could not see that any value was contributed to the discussion, and I did not choose to have such filth cluttering my life.

Sigh. It is a sad thing when one must compromise one's ideals.

k said...

JWYW, Morris - You know, that's really it in a nutshell. That's why they're so irritating. We're in a blogging subset that does NOT have problems with disagreement; we act like grownups - pretty much! - and discuss them cordially enough, arguing ideas rather than attacking the individual.

Ya know. Like old farts.

I like being an Old Fart.


PL, I was wondering if you'd had to do that. Although I hadn't read either of the comments you refer to, I'm pretty certain that in your shoes I would have done the same thing, ideals notwithstanding. You were able to hold out for a long, long time. That's very much to your credit both as blog administrator, and as Salon Hostess Without Peer.

See, the guys are right: trolls are a waste of our time.

And like JWYW said, here in my Old Fart/Old Crone status, I don't feel like I have so much time that I'm willing to waste it.

Here's another way they waste our time: I'm so curious to know WHO they are.