How do you deal with trolls?

[heynurse]

I'd be interested in finding out what tactics you all use when dealing with trolls?

What are you favorite anti-troll tactics? Hacks? etc...

I like to use the miserable user hack, Tachy goes to Coventry, ban IPs. But we still can't keep out some trolls who use IP spoofers etc.. and continue to register under different aliases.

[Borgs8472]

I've always gone with the unconventional approach. If someone's 'trolling', give them a place to do so where they don't annoy people. E.g. if somone keeps starting controvercial topics, it's important there's a controvercial topic forum. If someone keeps trying to post porn, make sure they're a hidden forum for porn.

It honestly don't believe in banning people who are labled as trolls, rather do my best to assimilate them and keep my other members happy.

Spammers on the other hand...

[Paul M]

Either Bans, or Miserable Users for the more persistant ones.

[Morning Glory]

There is a hack around here somewhere that sends IP Addresses to Moderation. It puts them in the Coppa section.

That has worked really well for me. You can moderate an entire city if you want to or all of AOL. I've only used it once, but it was the only thing that worked on someone that was a real problem.

[Stangsta]

I have a "Troll cage" where I send them once they are determined to be a troll. The troll cage is just a forum that the regular members cannot see, but the person in the cage and the mods can see it. The only other group that can see it is my "shit talking" group, compriomised of the members that love to talk trash. These members have opted in to that group after agreeing to the terms. The "troll" is then made a thread and if he responds, it gives him a chance to speak his peace and convince the worst of my memberbase his worthiness. If we had determined that he will be forgiven, he is released back into the forums. If not, he will spend eternity in the cage. Its quite fun actually, and keeps the trash off the regular forums.

[GTAce]

Interesting method, Strangsta...and I've had people talk about doing this before...have been tempted to do it myself, but am afraid of one thing. What if this cage is actually appealing to some members? I mean, I'll admit, it does sound pretty interesting to me...so what if word gets around and people start acting rowdy in hopes of being thrown in the cage? I know it sounds crazy and like a bit of speculation, but who knows...it could happen

[Stangsta]

Originally Posted by GTAce

Interesting method, Strangsta...and I've had people talk about doing this before...have been tempted to do it myself, but am afraid of one thing. What if this cage is actually appealing to some members? I mean, I'll admit, it does sound pretty interesting to me...so what if word gets around and people start acting rowdy in hopes of being thrown in the cage? I know it sounds crazy and like a bit of speculation, but who knows...it could happen

If thats the kind of members you have, then the ones that require such attention probably belong there. It is not somewhere they WANT to be. I have disable every other feature on my sire i.e profiles, member searching, arcade, chat etc so they cannot use it. Remember, this is punishment, make it feel like it. :banana:

[GTAce]

It's not the kind of members I have, I was just curious ...because I could easily see it happening

[TMM-TT]

Originally Posted by GTAce

It's not the kind of members I have, I was just curious ...because I could easily see it happening

I'm working for a big company in Sweden where trolling is a big problem sometimes. I've developed a small tool for our moderators, to check usernames against their ip. The tool does'nt warn on trolls but our moderators can easily scan for new nicknames in this database, to see if anyone has registered or posted with another nick before (posting is not required with this tool). The only problem is that this database grows fast, depending on the forums size and it's not completely foolproof. If some users uses the same proxy or ip, for example, there will be a lot more matches than we want.

- The good thing is that we've stopped some users before they even reached the threads... Most of the times, it really works...

[Freesteyelz]

We warn, kick and ban whenever necessary.

I run a respectable gaming community. As many of you who play online games are aware that a large portion of the gaming world is filled with immaturity. It comes with the territory. We tolerate very little on our gaming servers and Ventrilo. On our forum it really depends on the nature and type of bickering going on. Sometimes people feel the need to state their case so we allow but monitor them closely. Personal attacks we lay the law quickly.