Easy and Effective Tools To Deal With Internet Trolls

Ms. Cynthia, from Luna's Mandala, and I had a booth next to each other at Bailey Day, and afterwards a fun dinner conversation at 3 Margaritas to celebrate a fun day. She recommended an interesting book that I started reading while on vacation. It's simple, and already how I try to live my life (as best I can anyway, not perfect) so I'm not expanding my horizons all that much, but I'm going to recommend it to you all. It's called The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom .

The Four Agreements are:
Be Impeccable With Your Words
Don't Take Anything Personally
Don't Make Assumptions
Always Do Your Best

I really liked the "Be Impeccable With Your Words" chapter. Do you know what impeccable means? I'll bet not!
My best advice for interacting with others on an anonymous (or as anonymous as possible in a small community) online forum is "Don't take anything personally." The other poster doesn't know you, what your life experiences are, your core beliefs, what defines you, etc and their argument (ie opinion of you) is, to put it as a popular meme circulating right now, "invalid". It's not worth your time, energy, or stress to take seriously what someone else posts, either good or bad because only your own opinion of yourself matters (and even that is subject to the guilt that you put yourself through, so don't trust it either - confusing, huh?).

The best way to handle a troll is to keep your calm, or ignore them entirely. If a poster gets monotonous, then laugh that they are so one-dimensional and move on. Or challenge them and yourself to look deeper and have a different conversation. But as the Make Quick Work of Internet Trolls by Using Cognitive Therapy link in the OP says,

the often-suggested method of ignoring the trolls (often referred to as "don't feed the trolls") is not the way to go. Neither is criticism, calling for banning, or asking a troll to simply stop trolling. So what should you do? Ask questions to clarify (e.g "Why do you feel that Python is so bad? What do you find wrong with it?"), and kill with kindness (e.g. "It's OK to prefer Perl, we'll still accept you here."). As frustrating as it may be to be nice to someone who isn't, sometimes people just want to be heard and accepted.

This takes time, effort, and self-control - who's up for it?!

This post is from another thread a little while back, but thought the content of this original thread would be good to bump back up as a reminder.


Respond to the human, not the troll:


If You Respond Only to Ass-Hats, Your Life Will Soon Be Full of Ass-Hats
By Adam Pash
Jun 4, 2012

Nicole Sullivan's job is to make the internet run better, which means that much of her day is spent interacting with people on the internet. Doing so has given her a great deal of insight into interacting with people both on the internet and in real life, and she's learned quite a bit about dealing with trolls, uncovering your own biases, and communicating effectively online.

Her insights include the title of this post.

The talk is largely a re-framing of "Don't feed the trolls", but throughout her talk, Sullivan includes subtler pieces of that advice that you may not have considered. As such, she also recommends making an intentional effort to redirect your attention to the non-trolls, and when you do respond to trolls, to respond only to the human part.

Check out the 12 min embedded talk in the link, or here and take the test to discover your biases, if you dare.

AKA do you guys wanna see how you're being studied?

ScienceShot: Has the Internet Turned Us Into Jerks?
by Chris Palmer on 11 May 2012

In the real world, social pressure usually keeps us from acting like jerks in large groups of people. The same holds in the online world, according to a new study. Researchers combing through 2.5 million posts from 20,000 users in 20 Internet discussion groups have found that, despite the anonymous monikers employed by most participants, *the tone of online discussions was positive or neutral 85% of the time.

Food for thought: Are there differences between chat rooms and forums?
* Emotional persistence in online chatting communities
doi:10.1038/srep00402
Published 10 May 2012

Why We Buy Into Ideas (And How to Convince Others of Our Thoughts)
Iris Shoor
Oct 24, 2012

—different people think in different ways. And yet the consequences of this couldn't be any more powerful: It means that people interpret what you're saying in different ways, based on the way they think.

To put differently: the important thing is not what you say—it's what others hear. A truth Dale Carnegie knew a long time ago: "There is only one way… to get anybody to do anything. And that is by making the other person want to do it."

Now, here's an interesting paradox—while looking to convince others we rely on our own thinking tools and strengths. Now, switch chairs with your listener and ask yourself what his or her strength is. Sure, you take into consideration what's important to them, but—how about understanding how they actually think?

To make the best out of this read, pick someone you work with, live or spend time with (or post online with!). Try to fit this person into the different thinking categories. You'll find that you'll be able to better understand their way of thinking.

And when you better understand their way of thinking, you can craft more effective arguments to convince them to agree with your point of view. Of course there will always be trolls who are only in it to push people's buttons and disrupt a board and I'm not including them in this effort as it's a waste of time; but, to engage in more meaningful, quality conversations with others, give this a try.

Why you're probably not as rational as you think you are — and what you can do about it
George Dvorsky
11/02/12

When it comes to self-improvement, few people consider their reasoning skills. Most of us simply assume - and take for granted - that under most circumstances, we formulate perfectly rational opinions. But according to an emerging subculture of rationality gurus, there's still plenty of room for improvement.

You may have noticed that when people say "That's not rational" they usually just mean, "I disagree with you." But to cognitive scientists, "rationality" means something specific. It's a set of techniques from math and decision theory for forming your beliefs about the world as accurately as possible, and for making decisions that are most likely to achieve your goals.

Catching irrationality in the moment is harder. Once I started paying attention, I was surprised at how frequently I noticed myself dismissing an argument because I didn't want it to be true, or because I felt defensive, or because it's being made by a pundit I dislike.

So one simple trick that I use all the time now is a thought experiment. I'll ask myself, for example: "If it was my favorite blogger making this argument, rather than the pundit I dislike, would I still think it's a bad argument?" It's a handy way to check whether you're evaluating an argument rationally or whether you're biased against it for some reason.