Trolls and Sockpuppets

I have actively or passively (lurked) participated on various online newsgroups and forums for years.  It took very little time to discover there was a subset of people interested only in causing a ruckus and the bigger the better.  The folks were called trolls.  Despite the referral to the ugly, mythical creature rumoured to live under bridges the internet troll is a person who uses bait like a fisherman trolling then slowly reals the victim in.  Once the victim has taken the bait in most cases the troll sits back to enjoy the chaos s/h/it caused.  For that reason trolling is more of activity you see on newsgroups, yahoo groups and similar type forums with newsgroups (usenet) being worse because there is no moderation at all.  Trolls if they are good attract sockpuppets and if they aren't so good create fictitious sockpuppets to make it look like they have a following and create more chaos.

Now that trolls and sockpuppets has been explained, how does that pertain to blogging?  Well, when I was blog hopping a couple of days ago I cam across a blog all concerned about a troll plaguing their blog, make comments and then being supported by their sockpuppets.  The problem is what is happening to this blogger on their blog cannot be called trolling.  What it is, is one or two people trying to get under the blogger's skin by making inappropriate comments.  They are continuing to do so because they are getting a reaction from the blogger each time they do so and they are encourage to make comments because the blogger is allowing the comments to be posted.  If this blogger had comment moderation turned on the only one who would see the comments before being rejected is the blogger.  The instigator would never even know if their comment had been read and the blogger would have quite effectively taken away the audience or attention the instigator is seeking.  After a few attempts and realizing the comments are not getting posted the instigator will move on to bug someone else.  However, to get them to do so means don't feed them!  A whole blog post and it was a lengthy one complete with the instigators name and how this was affecting the blogger serves only to encourage the instigator.  To my understanding the instigator also took their comments over to a forum associated with this blogging group.  Now here it could be considered trolling but again if they don't get a reaction they will move on.

If this should happen to you, realize that you have full power to control your own blog.  That means you do not have to put up with anyone making comments on your blog if you don't have to.  Remove any comments that might have got through then set your comments to moderation.  If you really have to rant about it allow yourself one post but worded in an ambiguous manner without revealing the instigator's name or details of any comments the instigator made.  This will keep the instigator wondering if you are referring to them or someone else.  Once you've done this, move on.  Unless you are dealing with a really disturbed person guaranteed they will move on rather quickly.

Garden Gnome
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