trollpolice.com

I have been receiving a lot of email lately asking some very important questions on how to deal with Internet Trolls, and what to do when their trolling becomes more threatening.

It’s really tough not to allow your personal emotions get in the way. It can be even more difficult not to react to someone who is constantly harassing you, or your forum members.

But, I cannot stress enough, and will say it until I am blue in the face: DON”T FEED THE TROLL.

What does that mean? It’s simple really, do not respond in anyway shape or form to a troll. Their whole purpose is exactly that, to get a reaction, any reaction from the people/community they are trolling.

As an admin, or monitor on a forum board, your job is to prevent the trolling, not fuel it. Here are some basic steps to block trolling:

1. Immediately delete threads/posts. Don’t lock them, don’t reply to them, just delete them.
2.  Ban the troll right away. No warning, no questions asked, nothing. Just ban them.
3. Collect any email address and IP they are using. Forum board usually record this information for you.
4.  If you know of any other site they are on, what their username is, collect that info to.
5. If they make another site, or go to another site, bashing you – so what. It’s their desperate attempt to get your attention. Don’t bother. People are smart, and when they come across this type of trash-talking, they usually know immediately the person(s) are a troll. Don’t sweat it.
6.  Before you consider banning an actual IP – read this: http://kalsey.com/2004/02/why_ip_banning_is_useless/
7. Beef-up registration process. Most trolls will sock-puppet (create new accounts after being banned). Set it up where you have to approve membership. This will prevent them from reregistering and posting without your approval. Usually, you can identify whether or not the new members is a legit person, or a troll just by their email address alone. You can do a little research on the email address that registered or even the username if it is unique and find them on Myspacce or elsewhere… to determine if they are a different person entirely.

If you are being threatened, or continuously harassed, learn your federal/state laws on cyber-stalking and cyber-bulling: http://www.blackwebportal.com/nuforums/vm.cfm?Forum=3&Topic=4748

Here are some things you can do to get outside help:

(from
http://www.surferbeware.com/safety/internet-safety-faqs-cyberstalking.htm)

You should report the incident to the system administrator (aka “sysadmin”) of both your Internet Service Provider (ISP) and the ISP of the stalker or harasser. Be aware that sometimes stalkers/harassers try to conceal their tracks by forging (aka “spoofing”) their e-mail headers. If you receive abusive e-mail, you might want to visit SpamCop. This free (with voluntary subscription) service will analyze your unwanted e-mail to determine its point of origin, and can generate a report that will be e-mailed to the appropriate sysadmin. You can also visit  CyberSnitch to report Internet abuse and have a report sent to the appropriate law enforcement agency.

Check with your own ISP to learn about their abuse policy; this is usually outlined in the customer service agreement. Generally complaints of abuse are sent to the postmaster or the abuse department, and the addresses will be something like “postmaster@yourisp.com” or “abuse@yourisp.com.” Many ISPs use both addresses. Go to your ISP’s web site for more detailed,  official information. Be sure to forward a complete copy of the mail, including the headers, to the sysadmin. Most sysadmins will not hesitate to cancel the account of anyone using their ISP to send abusive mail, and will cooperate with other sysadmins to prevent future occurrences. If your sysadmin does not take your complaint seriously, that may be a good reason to change ISPs.

For legal questions about cyberstalking, visit http://cyber.findlaw.com/criminal/cyberstalk.html, a collection of
articles on the subject. U.S. laws on cyberstalking vary from state to state, but if you have been threatened in e-mail, you may wish to ask an attorney about the Federal statute 18 U.S.C. 875(c). Under that statute, “transmission in interstate or foreign commerce of a communication containing any threat to kidnap any person or any threat to injure the person of another,” is a federal felony, carrying a maximum sentence of 5 years in prison and a fine of $250,000.