Been thinking about this rule over the last year and a half with some of the shenanigans we've seen; it places more punishment on the victims of trolling than the perpetrator, since actual trolling seems to often go unmoderated.

This creates a situation where not only are trolls free to antagonize others and derail discussion, but they are protected from even being called out on their behaviour because doing so is forbidden.

The result is a power imbalance where users who troll have more rights than those who follow the rules.

To play devil's advocate... what good does calling a troll a troll do? 

If you call someone a troll do they say "Oh damn they got me I'll shut up now"? More likely than not, they'll just troll harder and further derails the conversation.

It doesn't really protect trolls, because being the center of attention is what they want, even if it's for trolling. I imagine the theory is to dissuade people from feeding the trolls, and make them more likely to report than to try and engage. 

It doesn't stop it, that's what moderation is for, but it does place an undue burden on rule-abiding users to tiptoe around those who break the rules.

Just telling someone "you're a troll" won't accomplish anything, sure, (though it shouldn't be a punishable offence) but a more useful case might be warning others not to engage with someone who has a history of trolling.

In any case, it's just a thought.

Ignore trolls.... nobody is forced to respond. Just saying. It is pretty simple.

If you feel harrassed or that a serious thread is being affected, reporting them so that a mod takes proper measures - or better yet - just plain ignoring them, is the way to go. Accusing them of trolling has no effect, its not like they or the other users, arent aware that its trolling.

Good reasons to call someone a troll:

1. It's a shortcut. Instead of having to bother to break down everything in every post for a rebuttal, you just call it what it is and save everyone a lot of time. It prevents derailment.

2. It brings a problem to the attention of yet unknowing users. People can beat the drum of "do not feed the troll" all they want, but there will always be new users who do not know yet, so the troll will get his attention before too long anyway.

3. It brings attention to the mod team who might have slept on their job. Reporting users does not mean that the mod team will take appropriate measures.

4. It puts pressure on the troll. You are correct that a troll won't shut up, but he now knows that someone knows, and that means his playground gets tighter limits. A troll isn't only in it for attention, the second fundamental objective is to get away with it.

Where you are very wrong is that the rule does indeed protect trolls. It has been a recurring event on VGC that good users got punished for simply stating the truth while the trolls got off scot-free. If that isn't protection, then what is. One only has to remember all the surrounding issues with the user Kerotan where the mod team for an inexplicable reason came up with entirely new rules to accommodate him. It took years until the mod team finally came to the conclusion that he is a troll who isn't good for this site. The same guy was active on several other forums, all of which gave him the boot much sooner.

@curl-6 What specifically has made you come to your conclusion? Yes, I am asking for things that really happened and for names.

I'll take a ride on Rol's questions and ask my own: what rule is that? I think I'm not familiar.

You can be called a troll even when your not trolling. My autism and direct way of speaking often get me labeled as a troll, I gave up caring long ago in life and on the Internet but I can see why this is a good rule to protect the neurodivergent from getting lumped in as trolls and perhaps people will have a little more patience dealing with our misunderstanding instead of instantly going to "troll" disregard their opinion. I'm fully open to people correcting me instead of that happening and I think this rule would help allievated the issue. I'm for it.

The problem lies with the fact that in the gaming community, there has been so much harassment over the years, that we're almost trained to believe that every opposing viewpoint, or dissension, is an attempt to troll, so people are constantly accused of things they aren't doing. As someone who has never been a one-console-guy, or subscribed to the idea that these companies, any of them, are above criticism when warranted, I can not begin to tell you how many times people have called me a troll when literally, that is the last thing in the world I'd ever want to be. So that's probably why the rule exists. There isn't much that can be done about it. It's just the way it is.

No! You cannot call a “troll” a troll. Matter of fact, I say we allow trolling on this site! (i have no motivated reasoning here…totally not like I requested being banned from the entire political forum b/c I trolled too hard. No way!)

Being serious: What if I were to call RolStoppable a troll? Would I be protected? He’s very clearly acting like one with all his smug, condescending remarks. (i.e. How do we draw the line of allowing for the label of “troll”? If there is a line, then anybody is at risk of getting into trouble. If there is no line, then that opens the floodgates for name-calling, which goes against the intentions of ToS.)