Troll Control for your website - The Basics
It's probably a waste of time to think too hard about who is identifiable as a troll and how it works, at least in our present age. But if I were to try and find a summary, I'd suggest there's a few common internet behaviours that basically ruin the vast majority of conversations, intentional or not. And our best immunity to them is to catch the individual behaviours as they come. I believe they're more damaging than emotionally laden flame wars. These are usually the resultant process, but not the trolls themselves. Trolls use simpler methods than finding fallacies because it's really just a more routine and simple pattern of disruption.
WHAT TO NOT DO IN FORUMS - OR - BEHAVIORS TO AVOID DOING AND ALSO STEER CLEAR OF RESPONDING
*The "Actually fact" or "actually false" dichotomy. Chiming in that this is the resolute truth based on this website, or this axiom, or this hotline etc. Anyone that states factually, please ignore.
*Rabbit hole with a dead end. This is the reason why people are skeptical when we may resent them as "pseudoskeptics." They are following the realization that you can't possibly read everything everywhere in one lifetime and some people make it their job or hobby to actually spin a whole rabbit hole that leads to a dead stop. I don't blame people for being angry if I start talking about Essassani or UFOs or remote viewing, and they respond with outright rejection. How am I supposed to assume that I can profess to their faulty thought process or navigation errors. In the same way I need to not insist that I know the "facts" I also need to not insist that everyone has an "open mind" and by my specific context of open mind meaning "believe what I believe"
*Masked Man. Okay I was planning not to mention overt fallacies, but this one comes up a lot. In the context of forums, sorry to say but who cares who the author is or what their traits are. You're just going to take their statements at face value and move on. So commenting on who they are or why they say that is not very helpful.
WHAT *TO* DO IN FORUMS.
*Post links, even if that's all you post. No context is fine, if it isn't phishing or spam. We want relevant information fast and a great way is to just leave it available. But (and I am guilty of this) it should be relevant content to help the conversation and not complain.
*Accept *some* trolling behaviour. Just accept that this is new normal of internet navigation. The same way you evade the sidebar advertisements in websites, you avoid the weird comments. Moderators need to be tolerant and flexible, so you can expect there will be debris no-matter what. Such is the task of discernment.
*Don't spend too much time on it. This is my problem too. Forums are nice means to gather our thoughts but once you've amassed a good amount of data, you should own it on your own domain. Create a website, or blog, or whatever. And if you think it's relevant in a forum, post the link there. Otherwise you are just giving away all your hard efforts to the random cosmic void. That's why we have a lot of trolls on forums, because the good writers are taking ownership and separating from that mass.
*Be web relevant. And here I am very much violating this too. We're on a website about remote viewing and I haven't said a single thing about remote viewing in my whole post. This doesn't feel very smart on my end.
And on that note I'm taking a copy of this and putting it in my own google doc.
Thanks Tazz. What a very mature and thoughtful analysis of warning signs, behaviors, and approaches to take when experiencing such posts. I’d like to add that as people who experience emotions, we are often triggered when others make statements that appear to devalue our own or place undue limits on us. It’s okay to feel the feelings we have when we disagree with someone but if we can process those feelings first, give it some time, then reply when you have calmed down, you may see that they are not worth your time. We may also realize that we are being emotionally baited into a stressful combative dialogue. If you cannot “catch them as they come”, as Tazz has suggested, step back when you get triggered rather than dive in to argue and clarity will come.