Why do people fall for troll games?

I'm seeing a huge influx of trolls destroying this place, it's not quite so happy any more, not the place I enjoyed when I first signed up here at all. I'm sitting here watching some of these get out right belligerent, yet they still keep their accounts, and worse, too many people are just blindly playing into their hands.

I guess there has never been a clear definition of this here, I saw a partial one, but it was obscured and quite incomplete. I'll try to fill in the gaps here, hopefully people are going to take notice when they face them and perhaps, opt to not give them the time of day.

There are 3 types of trolls.

Spam trolls, these are people, typically new that generate threads and posts relating to the wares they are trying to sell. These type typically will have a link to their web site in their signature, or if links are disabled because they are too new, they will still have it in copy and paste mode. They tend to bring in others with them at the same time, and in many cases, have several screen names, faking conversations in order to entice others into joining along the dialog.

Disruption trolls, these are people that again, are typically new who's sole intent is to create dissension, they will make boasts, and insults against the status quo, and in many cases, are making statements that clearly are targeted at causing negative emotional feedback. They do it to gain attention, and entirely to cause disruption, for they have nothing better to do with their lives.

Drama trolls, these tend to be individuals that are not exactly new and have embedded themselves within the boards in order to gain others trust. They tend to be the online stalkers, and if you refuse their presence within your circle of friends, you become a target, for they consider their will to be superior to your own.

The latter is the worse type, for they will manipulate other members to cause dissension to their targets. They live to be the center of attention, and if they are not, all hell breaks loose.

All 3 types will lie, cheat, steal and manipulate in order to get what they desire and in all cases, at the expense of the valued contributors and at a loss for the board owners, for nobody wants to be subject to this, this is why we have a mute button on our tv remotes, which of course, cannot be done in print form, for when you block one, another takes it's place.

I speak from experience here, having founded two online forums, one I sold, the other I still run and as admin/moderator, I have to deal with all 3 types on a regular basis. It's work to manage an online forum, and this is where the valued members come into play to keep it safe and make it a better place, yet at the same time, the staff here could use a little kick in the pants as to what they are allowing to be posting here, for some of these posts I'm seeing here recently are quite appalling, and in the end, they are losing members in the process.

In the end here guys, don't just blindly contribute to their games, if you look a little more closely, it's very easy to see their agenda's in most cases, and simply not responding, or at best, just giving a negative kudos if you have to take action and/or report them to the staff here, then so be it. We as constructive members are just as valuable, if not more so then the board owners, for without our participation, there is no community to join in, in the first place.

i much prefer a pint of stout and a football game

No offence but you've been here 21 days. It doesn't really give you a great insight to everything.

The mod's do a fantastic job as much as they can but they have lives too, they go to work and have social lives as well offline.

There will always be trollish posts but not all of them break TOS so deleting them/banning the member is uncalled for.

isnt that human nature though?

Angel, I've been posting to forums in many different fields for many years, it's always the same thing in each and every one of them. It's just the nature of online forums regardless of what field they are in, or what they are about, heck I saw the same behavior going on in a guinea pig forum I was part of many years ago and you would think something geared to that would remain innocent.

I was reluctant to start my own, yet I had too many people pushing me to do it, knowing full well my programming skills are more then capable in this area to implement. I was reluctant knowing the time it takes to babysit them, luckily I'm able to rely upon a good bunch of friends to help out as needed, and with the one I currently run, it runs itself without my intervention.

In too many cases, it is, but not all, and I've ran into some very genuine, honest people here I don't have to worry about in that regards. I can give you some insight that might help out, for I face this constantly in the business world. Eventually it does catch up to you, and once you have gained a reputation for being that way, nobody trusts you any more. I'm watching a local competitor, one of the very biggest in my field, absolutely dwarfing my own scale wise, crash and burn, and the wake of the reputation he's left is global, literally from Italy to China, to the US, all in this industry are just looking down at him, and he's essentially finished, all because he pushed it too far with the above context.

I know it's the nature of the internet. Basically you give people a way to be anonymous and they'll act like a** holes.

It was the fact you mentioned that TFS had changed. It really hasn't changed much in the past month for so, and our mod's are on top of most things but sometimes they miss it so they rely on people to report any breakings of the rules.

I haven't seen as many trolls about lately as there has been, don't think there's been that huge an increase really. But yeah, you're bound to get them in every forum and as much as it's not good to feed them as it were, it can be great fun.

Angel, I'm just telling you what I've observed with my own personal experience, you might not be getting the same, also I've been shifting between different work/sleep schedules, so have been getting a well rounded exposure to people here from around the globe. When I first started here, I was busting up laughing at what was being posted, this truly impressed me, I think a big part of it was the mixture of UK, Aussie, and USA humor. It made a really nice mesh, it's just not here any more, I don't know where it went, but it's not the same to me, not at all.

TFS goes through phases because not everyone is around all the time it dies down over time, especially surrounding the holidays.

i love the smell that in the morning smells like victory

i'm afraid being a whiney attention seeker isn't against the rules.
and lets face it, theres a lot of people who pop on here and troll and then leave with some pretty obvious mental issues.

if people want to reply then do, if not don't.
i don't think we're playing into their evil schemes by not ignoring them, sometimes its interesting.

i think we've all learned not to put too much stock ito what people say untill we know them better.

*cough* lexxel *cough*

Alex, it doesn't bother you to be clicking onto what would appear to be a legitimate thread, then reading through their statement, only to find you just wasted your time going through it all. It's kind of disappointing don't you think. It's rather like going through your spam email folder and reading all of the messages there, thinking one of them is going to be real.

I guess I'll just take what Angel is saying along phases, the one I chimed in on when I first joined up, that's the phase I'd like to see continue, you guys can be a lot of fun.