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Know how to identify a real Internet troll

Do you know what an Internet troll is? According to the Urban Dictionary : "A person whose sole purpose in life is to seek out people to argue with on the internet over extremely trivial issues.
internet troll
Not all trolls are created equal.


Do you know what an Internet troll is?

According to the Urban Dictionary:


"A person whose sole purpose in life is to seek out people to argue with on the internet over extremely trivial issues. Such arguments can happen on blogs, Facebook, Myspace and a host of others. The best thing you can do to fight an internet troll is to not answer . . . or report them."


We have our fair share of trolls in the comments section of timescolonist.com. This is mostly a determination made by other readers:

troll comment

This poster did not take the advice of not answering. In fact, a comment like this is likely to be deleted by the moderator since it breaks the rule of not arguing with other posters or calling them names.

And, just to be clear, someone who puts forth a dissenting opinion isn't necessarily a troll.

Trolls are not the problem we're having in our website comments section. We're having problems with people who don't like opinions other than their own.

The comments section is set up to allow readers to "flag" offensive or inappropriate comments. This removes the comment until it can be reviewed by a moderator.

The problem is that some users are flagging anything they don't like. This seems most prevalent in discussions about the ongoing B.C. teachers' dispute. Either side, people love to go through and flag the other team's comments.

This is not in the spirit of a user-policed discussion. In fact, it make a travesty of the system. One solution is to require three (instead of one) flags before a comment must be moderated. But that defeats the purpose of allowing users to immediately identify truly objectionable material that may slip through our filters.

I have previously written about troubles with our comments. There is also good information from our partner, Disqus, on this matter, HERE and HERE. It might be worth your time to get more familiar with some of the protocols.

Finally, if you are wondering how to deal with an opinion you don't like in an effective and entertaining way . . .

comment rebuttal

Have fun. Play nice.

@CaleCowan

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