While this article was semi-informative, it also seemed to miss the point on recreational trolling. What do you all think? http://unarmed.shlomifish.org/909.html

A fascinating read there, elfprince13, thanks for sharing. I do indeed think it misses the point of recreational trolls, which is to express an opinion without believing it purely for the sake of creating strife and drama. The author of that post seems to be treating trolls as if they are sincere but tactless.

Trolls suck.
And so does that article.

Nikky sucks. Just like you. And thanks for the awesome and constructive post in this topic.

Oh, I notice that that article didn't seem to mention that valuable argument tool, sarcasm.

"Yes, trolls are nice people, and I agree that not feeding them has its downsides.

It's OK to like trolls, we'll still accept you here.

Would you agree that some people like to ignore trolls and some like to reason with them? (And some may like both equally.). Maybe you can still talk to trolls while still not feeding them. Who knows, maybe you'll even grow to like trolls. Feel free to stick around and ask questions."

That was my impression as well, though some subspecies of troll do seem cease their trollish behavior in that venue when faced with that sort of response, since it significantly decreases the entertainment value.

That's fair. I think that a good lesson to take from our conclusions, therefore, would be that these are good general guidelines to consider when confronting a troll, but that the different kinds of trolls require different treatment, and that it's important to play the conversation by ear when trying to neutralize (or to reverse-troll, even) a troll.

Stopped reading after he started trying to sell me something.

Loll @DShiznit.

Personally, I disagree. A troll is a troll, a bully is a bully, and a nikky is a... whatever the heck a nikky is. The point is that a troll will only try and hurt and cause damage. Granted, if I said:

Then I would be asking for it.

graphmastur, I'd say yes, it does, and it takes 99% of your CPU to count slowly from 1 to 10 while it does it.

This would most likely not work with every troll. There are many types of trolls. The ones who really want to cause harm to communities will continue to troll no matter what, and will only leave once they notice they can no longer have fun out of a community.

DJ_O, exactly, that's the kind of recreational trolling that I think Elfprince and I feel these tips would work poorly against.

This post is stupid.

QFT

I wondered when you two would show up

Don't you mean "I am too lazy to actually make my own post so instead I quote people and then don't say anything new"?

I am too lazy to actually make my own post so instead I quote people and then don't say anything new.

I am too lazy to actually make my own post so instead I quote people and then don't say anything new

Pissing them off until they ragequit is way more fun

Generally speaking, a troll cannot be pissed off, because that would be an emotional response, and trolls have no human emotion...