How to deal with Trolls

I've been searching Google+ for tips on how to deal with Trolls on your comments and posts.
Here are the results:

http://memolition.com/2014/07/03/the-7-worst-types-of-internet-trolls-are-you-one-of-them/

From +Guy Kawasaki

Top 12 Signs You're Dealing With Trolls

Dealing with trolls is one of the costs of participating in social media. These are the folks who combine a strong opinion with a lack of knowledge. A handful of inflammatory and negative comments can neutralize dozens of positive ones. Here are the top twelve signs that you're dealing with someone who lives under a bridge.

1. Bad Grammar, spelling, and linguistic cues.Trolls don't capitalize the first word of sentences, use periods, or commas. They have a tough time with homophones (words that sound the same but have different meanings and spellings). This has nothing to do with gay rights though trolls have strong feelings about this issue too. They use the first-person pronoun ("I") and exclamation marks (!!!!) a lot. They type in ALL CAPS. They write long comments using short, simplistic, and goofy words. Example: "PUHLEZE, your completely WRONG about global warming everyone nose that al gore is just trying to cell books"

2. Entitlement. Trolls exhibit a exorbitant level of entitlement manifested in the belief that their time is valuable, and they should get everything for free. Example: "How dare Facebook run ads or try to monetize my content!!!!" "Why does she post stuff on her page that doesn't interest me and wastes my time???" "Dropbox should be honored that I store my files on its free service." "If Google+ ever has ads, I'm out of there."

3. Lack of first-hand knowledge. People with the strongest opinions often have the least first-hand knowledge. When you encounter the  certain and vociferous opinion of trolls, ask them if they have first-hand knowledge or experience. You'll find that trolls just "know" that something is true. Example: "Google+ is a ghost town." Do you use Google+? "No, but I know no one is there."

4. Lousy profiles. The profiles of trolls are usually lousy: out-of-focus and poorly-lit avatars, lack of personal cover and album photos, and incomplete biographical information. These people aren't trying to gain more friends or followers, so they don't care about the quality of their profile. A social-media profile is a window into a person's soul. Example: not forthcoming because I won't give any troll the satisfaction of being called out.

5. Intolerance. Trolls do not embrace diversity. Alternate thoughts, lifestyles, sexual orientations, and operating systems are both wrong and unacceptable. Example: "macs are too espensive and there're just something Steve Jobes ripped off from Xerox Park. i am much productive than any Mac owner"...

6. Pre-Copernicus. Trolls missed school the day that science class covered Copernicus's heliocentric model of the universe. Thus, they think that they are the center of the universe. Examples, "He's never left a comment on any of my posts, so he obviously doesn't know how to use social media." "She's never been in a hangout with me." "He's never once asked what I think about this."

7. Perfect information. Trolls expect everyone in the world to know what they did immediately after they did it. (Pre-Copernicus and perfect information is a deadly combination!) If you read the troll's post, you'll see that the person or company in question isn't + or @ mentioned so there's no way for them to know they were mentioned. Example: "i explained why he's wrong in my blog, but he hasn't responded yet."

8. Cowardly. Trolls are cowards and want to attack and pontificate but not constructively discuss. They do not have the courage to say to your face what they say online. They are bullies who are brave in a pack but shrink away from confrontation when they don't have a computer to hide behind. That said, you might find that trolls are perfectly reasonable people in person which is a difficult concept to grok.

9. Legal scholars. Many trolls are legal scholars but every legal scholar isn't a troll. In particular, trolls are experts in selective portions of U.S. constitutional law, U.S. Supreme Court rulings, and Sharia law. They are certain that the founding fathers anticipated the state of technology two hundred years hence. Example: "The Constitutions guarantees that I can protect myself in case a Muslim president sends Seal Team Six after me...im going to grab the AK47 I bought at Walmart and kick their asses"

10. Arithmetically challenged. Trolls are not good at arithmetic, and they oversimplify the facts. When they say "every," the fact is that they should say "some." However, their goal is to exaggerate and aggravate. Example: "Every post is a promotion for her company." "He never responds to anyone." "United flights are always delayed."

11. Holier-than-thou. No matter what you do, it's never enough. No matter what a troll does, it's exemplary. This often happens in the times of tragedy. You post, "An accident occurred today in London." Troll responds, "That's all you can say? I offered my prayers." Really? Only God needs to hear your prayers--do you need to tell the Internet too?

12. American. It pains me to say this, but I've noticed that most trolls are American. We're hung up on manifest destiny and the belief that we should tell everyone  how to live, what to think, and what to do--including, of course, other Americans. Example: when a tragedy happens in the U. S., trolls expect the whole world to come to a halt. It's as if an American life is worth more than any other country's.

(Adding to Guy's last point: I have only seen trolls from one nation misuse "Freedom of speech" as an excuse to writing hate-filled, obnoxious or venomous comments.  That seems to be the last defense in using foul language or hate speech often after when their comment content has been proved to be wrong. Sorry, but see the end of this article. -JN)

Now that you can identify trolls, here are five ways to handle them:

1. Give them a chance. Respond to a trollish comment and see what the person does. A troll will respond with anger, negativism, and hostility, but people who had a temporary trollish moment will make a reasonable and intelligent response. This happens about 20 percent of the time, but when it does, you can develop a true friendship from a rocky start.

2. Turn off comments in your posts. There's no law that you have to let people comment. When I post a story about abortion, gun control, or Barack Obama, I sometimes turn off comments to (a) reduce my aggravation and (b) frustrate trolls.

3. Ignore their comments. You can let trolls post their comments and simply ignore the comments. You don't have a moral obligation to respond to anything.

4. Delete their comments. Think of this as skimming the detritus off the surface of your swimming pool. If you keep deleting, eventually, trolls may tire of posting.

5. Get rid of them permanently. On Google+, for example, you can delete the comment, block the person from commenting, and report the person to the service.

From +Lauren Weinstein :

Lauren's Handy Guide for Detecting and Dealing with Trolls on Google+

1) Trolls virtually always appear very suddenly, like a big, painful, pus-filled pimple. Typically they emerge (like a daemon from Hell) as a provocative comment on your thread, and it's the first time you've ever heard of this individual. They are not to be confused with spammers, who represent a related (but largely orthogonal) class of social networking vermin.

2) Your first impressions regarding whether or not a comment has been generated by a troll will almost always be accurate. That is, if your gut reaction to a comment is that you're being trolled, you will likely be very accurate in that appraisal. Outrageous and/or highly provocative statements designed to trigger emotional responses are their hallmark. Occasionally you'll come up against a troll who takes a slower approach and attempts to draw you into a what appears to be a reasonable argument, but this is quite rare since most trolls aim to do maximal damage to as many threads as they can, as quickly as possible.

3) "Professional" trolls ("pro-trolls") usually prowl public G+ postings explicitly looking to spread disinformation and propaganda -- or even "simply" to disrupt threads -- in furtherance of specific goals, often politically or racially oriented. Some of these trolls work in organized packs, sometimes with serious funding behind them as systematic social networking disruption agents. Despite the tone of their postings, professional trolls are usually not actually nuts or idiots, and are very goal-oriented.

4) Freelance ("opportunistic") trolls usually work alone, and unlike "professional" trolls, they often *are* nuts and/or idiots. Their comments will be at least as provocative as those of pro-trolls, but may tend toward higher levels of wackiness that expose their lack of true goal orientation.

5) Both in the case of freelance and pro-trolls, a quick examination of their G+ profiles and postings is usually extremely useful to verify their status prior to blocking. Dead giveaways of their "trollness" include either a stream of nearly identical postings, a variety of postings that tend to all be concentrated within the "troll zone" of inanities, or very few (even zero) postings of their own at all, the latter suggesting that they rapidly create new accounts as their previous ones become heavily blocked.

6) Without exception, trolls should be *immediately* blocked when detected. Unless threats or the like are involved, it is usually not necessary nor appropriate to also report their profiles. I recommend blocking troll profiles quickly and mercilessly, and not even bothering to flag the individual comments, again unless threats or other illicit behavior are involved. In cases of threats, etc., you may want to flag the individual comments, then block and report the troll's account.

7) It is usually good practice to delete a troll's comments from your thread, to avoid later legitimate commenters being drawn into the maelstrom. You may also wish to strongly consider deleting any responses to the troll that fed the beast, especially since leaving those other comments in place after deleting the troll's comments tends to leave a disjoint comment flow that can be difficult for later readers to understand.

8) Whenever you block/report a troll, and/or delete their own comments and possibly other related comments, consider adding *your own* comment on the thread explaining what you have done. A note as simple as "Troll blocked and associated comments deleted" will usually be adequate.

9) Most importantly, show trolls absolutely no mercy. Block them immediately. Your threads are your responsibility, and you are under no obligation to host comments designed as weapons of destruction. Individual trolls rarely return -- they usually move on quickly to greener pastures. Their entire purpose is disruption through asymmetric attacks. You should feel absolutely no hesitation at blocking them, and no compunction for having done so. The saying *Do Not Feed The Trolls* (DNFTT) holds true. Do not engage them in conversation. Do not argue with them -- you might as well be arguing with a roll of toilet paper. Block them now. Report them if necessary. Clean up any damage they've done to your threads by removing their comments and related comments that could waste the time of other readers.

- - -

The wonders of social networking can only stay wonderful if we take individual responsibility to moderate, manage, and curate our threads, on Google+ or anywhere else.

This means taking our roles as thread creators very seriously, and not enduring the presence of trolls on our threads at any time -- not for any reason. No excuses. No exceptions.

Together we can help make Google+ as troll-free as possible. Human nature being what it is, we will never be entirely successful at this effort. But we can certainly give it the ol' college try.

--Lauren--

What is trolling?  Who is a troll?

Obviously to someone the meaning is different than to others ...

Is trolling or trollish behavior:

-  An obnoxious way to try and get attention in strangers' comment threads, usually very negative, aggressive and rude texts

- Fighting with anyone that disagrees

- Someone trying to get even with the world no matter how.

- Getting a feeling of power from antagonistic behavior

- Someone with a lousy self-esteem

- Someone who likes to hurt people. A warped mind, perhaps

Bantering among friends is not trolling, you know your friends and how much they can take.  But do you know the limit when you might hurt someone?

What is trolling to you?
How would you define it?  Have you come up against many trolls on Google+?

Let's discuss this without trololoos, shall we? :-)

Trolls by Paul Stickland

Go forth and post, and let's see what happens. Remember: don't be a troll yourself, and always assume that people are good until proven bad.
Just in case: Read more about blocking

I have written about commenting which ties very closely to trolling:
-  Comments, why do we post them?


Here is an interesting article from the Scientific American, titled

Commenting threads: good, bad, or not at all

A snippet:

Free Speech is a very American concept. Most of the other 200 nations on the planet do not provide constitutional protection of free speech. And Internet is global.

And even within the USA, the concept of free speech does not mean everyone has the right to say everything everywhere. It does not mean you have the right to say your stuff on my blog. It means you have the right to start your own blog. Just because I have commenting functionality on my site, does not mean you have the right to post whatever you want on it. Every host of every site has the right to delete, edit, or modify any comment in any way, to ban users, and to implement whatever moderation norms and techniques one wants.

Commenting is a privilege, not a right. You have to earn it.