Looks like the trolling is making a lot of gamers silent!

[Squilliam]

CGI-Quality said:

Squilliam said:

CGI-Quality said:

Squilliam said:

What Rol is saying is that you flush out the trolls by burning the bridges they hide under.

So they can build new ones to continue to seek refuge?

You can't flush out every troll, if each moderator had that ability, the trolls would hardly exist in the first place (but as we see, the trolling is increasing). What you CAN do is moderate as best as possible. Many times, a poster who is trolling will receive just a warning, because even though trolling is against site rules, it doesn't always go overboard, necessitating a ban. But with the increase of the troublemakers during an already busy part of the year (the holidays), all moderators can do is hope the reasonable folk of the community report the behavior so it can be dealt with.

Prevention is better than a cure in almost all cases. You only have a certain quantity of policing resources and it isn't available at all times. It is generally better to prevent trolling because otherwise innocent members get caught in the crossfire and get banned as well. Often you'll see several members get banned from one case of trolling, so that form of moderation is a blunt instrument.

To me, the part about an "innocent" is off. You can/will be banned for rule violation to the extreme. Even a veteran member should be banned/disciplined if they go too far, because in that sense, they're no longer innocent.

As for trolling prevention, if it were that simple, the entire internet would be a much quieter place. If cancer had a prevention, far less humans would die each year. In reality, neither is the case, so you have to work with what you got.

You can't prevent trolls from lurking the site, but like a cockroach, if you see it, squash it right then and there. That's all you can hope for, even if you try to bring in an exterminator (i.e. moderator).

If you leave food out and drop it on the floor all over the place you'll have a lot more cockraoches, no matter how many you spray/squash than if you keep the house clean, thats pretty simple. As for cancer, sure you cannot prevent it for sure however you haven't been taking any baths in pesticide recently have you? Or gone to an Asbestos cleanup without your mask on? Not doing these things is prevention even if it isn't really considered as such.

As for innocent members, the whole idea of a troll is to target fan(boys) of particular things. It is more easily said than done for people to be both passionate and at the same time respond calmy when people deliberately inflame their passions. If you want a place with no trolls you'll get a place with no passion. When you can make a thread saying how much you love Heavy Rain and noone cares, you'll know you're in a place with no passion, do you really want that?