Troll/Flamer Symptoms List:
1.Namecaller:
Denigrator. Disparager. This defines flamers.
"Troll" means "namecaller." Having been one myself, I can plainly see that our
purpose in life
is to build ourselves up by tearing others down. When our insults hit
home, we become stronger while our victims weaken. It's as if "Self
Respect" was something we can steal from others to add it to our own.
We're very good at this, and adept at keeping it hidden from
onlookers. Often our namecalling will subtly infect every bit of our
conversation to the point where it becomes invisible. With this
invisibility comes great power. To onlookers, our victims then appear
genuinely small and evil. (See, flamers cannot let other people have
opinions of their own, instead we must persuade, constantly
persuade,
but without being caught.) Then, if we take action against our victim,
well, it obviously was a pure and justified deed. Sometimes there
is no need, since our followers ( our persuaded-others ) take the action
for us, and nobody even suspects, much less exposes, the true instigator.
Sometimes our namecalling seems like mental
illness because it's completely unconscious: we're genuinely unaware of
the namecalling we use, and we honestly deny it when confronted.
(Sometimes we'll carefully avoid any namecalling whatsoever, yet still
suffer from all the other symptoms in major ways (then would
I still be a flamer? Yes. Just harder to recognize.)
Strip the
namecalling from an ongoing flamewar, and it becomes a discussion.
The namecalling has another interesting aspect: we trolls love to alter
reality by constantly applying derogatory 'important labels' to others,
and by striving to convince everyone to accept those labels (others aren't
allowed to have their own opinion. We must infect them with ours!)
We're like "dark storytellers," where our dishonest stories reach out into
the outside world and
alter reality.
Where a normal person would just express their viewpoint on, say,
your behavior, flamers instead will try to make their viewpoints
become
something real. We do this by applying a stream of derogatory labels
to you. Constant subtle denigration, disparagement, belittling,
discrediting, mild ridicule. Once pointed out, it becomes obvious.
(For example, I'll try to convince you not that (in my opinion) you've
misremembered something, but instead that you're actually a "Forgetful
Person." So sad. Clearly it's built into you. Probably since
birth! Not a
matter of opinion, it's just an obvious fact.) Heh. Or rather than
saying that that I personally don't like your behavior, instead I'll try
to convince you and everyone around you that you're a Bad Person. At
first glance this might look like a stream of namecalling, but a more
insightful description might be "attempting to distort reality by applying
succinct labels."
2. Competitive/argumentative:
FPD flamers are fighters. We're
verbal brawlers; we enjoy fierce arguments for their own sake, and we'll
try to create them. Reasoning
with us is a complete waste of time, since we're out to win, and
not out to actually listen to you. We'll respond to every single
message you post ...but without actually reading more than a couple
of lines. We'll
intentionally pick fights and start flamewars, and we'll also perform
subtle
moves to continue the fight rather than ending it (such as invariably
responding to every post, always.) Aggression is what we
live for. "Public defeat of other forum-users is what life itself is
all about." And, our stance is pure aggressive competition, "kill or be
killed," where giving ground or working cooperatively with colleagues is
impossible. "If you're not a winner, you're a loooooser!"
Some of us are extremely uncreative, and we see success as something to be
stolen from opponents. Many of us live in a hellish world without any
hope of love, a world made entirely of zero-sum games: we don't
manufacture our own "joy", so our only option is to steal some of
yours. Our viewpoints form our entire world; a world which must be
defended at all costs (defended at a cost of personal obliteration.) To
get us to change even a single opinion, you must utterly defeat us in a
huge, long-running public battle. And more often than not, we will
magically forget the entire event, and restore our original opinion the
next day. Again: trying to get us to see your viewpoint is a complete
waste of time, it's "feeding the troll." And, at the same time we always
label (ahem!) ourselves as completely "Open To Reason," as if
applying the label is a magic spell which makes it so.
3. Amoral:
Trolls believe that insults, verbal
abuse, character attacks, lies, and even death-threats are perfectly
acceptable behavior once "justified." Zero empathy, Zero compassion:
we're totally blind to the pain that our behavior brings to others. Many
of us
grew up with physically-abusive parents, in a world without love, hence
love has no place in our mental toolkit.
We may even have a psychopath-streak, where the very existence
of any other beings-with-feelings is not real to us. If flamers
still have a tiny sensitivity to others' pain, we crush it with words
like: "she deserved it!", or, "well, they started it!" If you honestly
complain to flamers, expect our response to be "oh, you're so sensitive,"
or "You're Not Hurt!", said with sneering contempt. (They're
liars, and so assume that when others complain about the behaviors, these
obviously can be nothing other than dishonest ploys, same as they
themselves would make if they were in your position.)
4. Vengeful:
Trolls believe that once an insult
has been received, it becomes perfectly acceptable to return the insult,
or even to embark on a long-running insult-stream. Fighting in public is
perfectly OK. We trolls know that returning insults in response to
insults is
always justified, even required, since any damage to our self-image
is painful and needs prompt treatment. We think to ourselves "Flamewars
are not shameful. Only people who start flamewars are shameful."
Unfortunately, we constantly start flamewars: we're always desperately
repairing the damage caused by all insults, even the tiny ones, and even
the ones which any bystander would see as an obvious misunderstanding.
Our sensitivity to ego-damage is so high that we'll often misunderstand
things on purpose, and take insult where none was offered.
All of the above, it constantly creates new incidents of the aggressive
"tit for tat" behavior we display. And it's very much "eye for an eye,"
where each theft of self-image requires a quick cure (and perhaps requires
some additional punishment as well.) Some FPD-ers see others' lack of
response as being disgusting weakness: "I damaged your ego, and you're
such a weakling that you didn't even bother to fight back." And if you
drop your defenses and show personal vulnerability, again, obviously it's
an example of disgusting weakness. Expect your admissions of personal
human flaws to be used against you in public.
5. Deceitful:
Trolls/flamers see nothing wrong with constant lying and distortion as
long as our victims don't catch on. We constantly lie as a
defense, but we're extremely skilled at keeping the lies from being seen.
As a result, FPD people sometimes seem far more honest than a
normal person. Onlookers who aren't sensitized to this, they'll easily be
taken in. During a discussion, most onlookers won't realize that lying
and namecalling are even present, unless they personally fight with us.
Also, in advance, we set up deep and extensive "plausible deniability" to
conceal our dishonest personal attacks. We're adept geniuses at 'Being
Seen As The Injured Party' (aggressors playing the victim) ...even while
we're actually attacking our target! :) Whenever our victims try to
point out our misbehavior, often the onlookers will DISBELIEVE THE VICTIM,
and take sides with the troll! To detect this sort of covert dishonesty,
you absolutely must fight with us personally, while also being sensitized
to our deception and distortion. You'll quickly see what's going on,
whereas if you only observe an argument from outside, the situation will
seem very different, and the instigator-troll may seem completely
innocent. These trolls' lies/namecalling can subtly penetrate everything,
and they remain invisible unless onlookers keep their eyes peeled. Those
under our spell won't notice, while outside onlookers will see it as "oily
persuasion" or "malignant dishonesty." Very Creepy! We disclaim all
responsibility for problems we have caused, and put the blame on others.
Many of us are dishonest about our own real identity, always hiding our
true background. For example, don't trust the name we're using, ask for
evidence that it's genuine. Often flamers create "fake personalities" or
separate, sock-puppet figureheads who seem to provide support to our
fights online. Flamers are even dishonest about lying itself: "after all,
Truth is a matter of opinion." No. Truth is what's left over when all of
our lying has stopped.
Some FPD-ers believe that their undiscovered lies are not "real", and will
smugly say "you can't prove that I was lying," when you have discovered
that they are. Often their conversations are filled with a recognizable
slipperiness, like talking to a sleazy politician or to a dishonest lawyer
...or to Dr. Smith from the old "Lost in Space" TV show! Like lawyers in a
debate, we aren't straightforward and truthful. We are masters of
distortion and persuasion, and will try to manipulate you into huge
disputes about infinitely decreasing levels of minutiae in order to divert
you from your original topic. Distraction is the flamers' weapon. We'll
suddenly attack your misspelled words. We love to dishonestly redefine
common words, then to argue endlessly about the "true" definitions.
Remember president Bill Clinton, who responded to questioning by asking
"what do you mean by the word 'is?'"
Flamers are intellectually dishonest and will intentionally sow confusion
in order to "win" arguments. We're 'truth obscurers' rather than truth
seekers, promoting 'darkness' rather than illumination. We often seem to
be thinking: "Lying about my thoughts is the safest. Nobody can know
what I actually was thinking when I said those words earlier, so I am free to lie, in
order to completely change my genuine original meanings, and nobody can
prove that I did so." Sometimes we believe all our own lies utterly.
That's the worst, because in that case, flamer-types see ourselves as
impeccably honest ...and then we mount an enormous subtle
distortion-campaign to prove that our opponents are despicable liars.
6. Narcissistic:
we trolls have extreme vanity, taking the form
of
an exquisite sensitivity to anything which even slightly resembles an
insult. Vengeance is everything. We cannot let small perceived insults go
by, but must respond. This happens because we're employing a false,
artificially good "self-image" in order to remain blind to our own rotten
behavior. Our fragile false image is easily damaged by the viewpoints of
our audience. As a result, our sensitivity to "What People Think" is very
large, and we'll go to enormous lengths to avoid being labeled with
negative descriptions. For
example, sometimes we behave very nasty during private email
conversations, but later seem like saints when on a public forum with an
audience watching. Also, healthy people spend a bit of time letting down
their guard, telling jokes, publicly discussing their failures and
personal flaws, comparing notes with fellow humans, etc. Not so the worst
FPD-ers. This whole side of our conversation is simply GONE. Often we'll
do almost anything to avoid having our flaws noticed, or to avoid
being embarrassed in public. When things aren't going our way, sometimes
we'll drop the thread and go silent for days, then upon returning, lie
about being "on vacation" or some such.
Escaping embarrassment definitely includes amazingly desperate
attempts to avoid being proved wrong in front of colleagues. Whenever
we're in danger of losing a public argument, we tend to slip into an
intellectually dishonest or even disturbingly "brain damaged" style of
reasoning which, when observed by onlookers, tends to create feelings of
confusion or even nausea. It's like looking on the naked face of genuine
insanity. If you've ever seen this occur, you'll never forget it. (But
maybe you'll be lucky, and instead the troll will only explode in towering
rage.)
7. Paranoid:
we trolls constantly display secretive behavior, being careful to avoid
freely discussing personal info: our schooling, experience, personal
problems, etc. This goes with #6 above: in
order to project a dishonest image as a superior "expert" rather than a
flawed human being, we must carefully prevent anyone from learning the
simple truth about our actual background and experience. We commonly hide
behind anonymous "handles," "online names," and anonymous email accounts,
so that web-searches cannot turn up any real-world info about us. We have
no real online friends, and instead treat everyone as an enemy who might
be "collecting damning evidence," and who cannot be trusted. We can never
let down our guard and take part in a simple human conversation, as if
that might give our opponents some weapons which will be used against us
in future battles. On the other hand, if a person has a true personality
disorder, there may be no genuine human being there with which to
communicate, and we FPD-ers desperately try to hide this fact. Especially
from ourselves.
8. No expressed self-doubt.
"Perfect" superior people don't
have to guard against making mistakes
(unless those
mistakes involve being caught lying, or letting our false image be
exposed.) Also, a "perfect" person will see nothing wrong with responding
to perceived insults; it never occurs to trolls to first check out
if our perception was a mistake. We seem to be silently thinking: "since
I never make perceptual mistakes, then whenever I feel insulted, somebody
must have insulted me intentionally." Or this: "since I never make
mistakes, whenever there is a difference of opinion, the other guy
must be wrong, therefore I don't have to examine my own arguments
even slightly, much less intentionally go looking for possible flaws in my
reasoning." And lacking self-doubt, we'll use your
self-doubt against you by constantly
calling your motives into question during an argument. But note that we
rarely take our own advice, ever siting down to analyze our own
motives.
It's
of paramount importance that we hide our true motives from ourselves.
Often we're so busy with this, that we don't bother to prevent everyone
else from
seeing them.
9. Self-blind:
No insight into our own flaws and foibles. We
cannot see our own mistakes no matter how obvious they are to others, and
as
a result we often act like superior and perfect beings who are
surrounded by contemptible inferiors. A capsule description of the pure
flamer personality could be "haughty superior arrogance" or "smug sneering
contempt." Note well that our self-blindness is very active and
carefully maintained. No matter how you may try to "hold up a
mirror" or help us to attain even a tiny insight into our own
behavior, we will skillfully block you at every turn. It's not really
blindness when we're such experts in keeping our eyes tight shut. But
don't forget, you cannot see what *we* would see, should our eyes ever
open. Don't try prying them open, that's the same as re-wounding a
damaged child.
10. Hypocritical:
totally enmeshed in a
self-serving bias: "when I do it, it's a pure and justified deed, but when
you do exactly the same thing, it's a shameful and disgusting
ploy."
Flamers constantly give advice to others, but it's very obvious that we
don't practice even a tiny bit of what we preach. We're always polishing
a collection of "reasonable arguments" to justify any of our common
misbehaviors, all the while remaining convinced that, whenever others do
them,
those same behaviors are reprehensible. For example, we'll often describe
all of our personal attacks as "constructive criticism" or "just telling
the truth," but describe any criticism we receive in turn as being
"disgusting insults, smear-campaigns, character assassination." Another:
flamers often
suddenly change the subject to "try a new approach." But whenever our
victims ever dare to start another thread, obviously they're being
manipulative worms who try to weasel out from under justified
criticism.
11. Self-important:
Egocentric, we flamers have a very low
opinion
of others, and
an exalted opinion of ourselves. Our humility is almost entirely absent;
we act as if we think we're spotless. Flamers also act as if everyone
else has huge disgusting flaws which need to be pointed out in great
detail,
...but of course if anyone did the same thing back to us, expect some
rage!
Some flamers
regard humility and self-criticism as a weakness or a character flaw. We
criticize others, either harshly or subtly, but become angry and extremely
defensive about the smallest criticism we receive in return, sometimes
even flying into towering rages. We never apologize, ever, and if you
should ever apologize to us, we'll use it against you, "helping" you to
emphasize your embarrassing
error. Our noisy, obnoxious behavior and constant flamewars seem
like transparent attempts to draw constant attention to ourselves. Often
this
effort seems almost "evil", as if the attention we crave is like energy
being sucked out of the hearts of everyone around us. It is, but it's
"self-approval" being stolen, rather than energy. We cannot create any
self-approval ourselves, so we have to harvest it elsewhere.
12. Denying/projecting:
We cannot see reality
honestly, but must constantly manipulate it by erasing some parts and
distorting others. E.g. some of us clearly see others' flaws, and launch
an attack, all the while hiding from ourselves that we have exactly
those flaws in enormous quantity. Usually our victims don't even have
those flaws at all, and the reason for a flamer's attack is nothing but a
delusional "psychological projection" of our flaws onto others. We avoid
neutral terms, and instead describe our own actions in glowing terms, also
applying derogatory language to the actions of everyone around us. We
constantly change honest descriptions of events into dishonest alternate
labels, and will argue incessantly about the "special" phrases which
must be used to label something. To maintain denial, we must add a
dishonest "spin" to all descriptions, in order to prevent any intrusions
of clear honest viewpoints of the greater world. During arguments, a
flamer typically takes the stance of a pure and righteous warrior battling
a disgusting foe. ( i.e. we "project" a falsely-pure image onto ourselves
to cover our flaws, as well as "projecting" a false demonized-image onto
our opponents, in order to make them seem evil.) To the onlookers, and
even to the victims, these projections are seductive and difficult to
fight, and sometimes the targets of flamers will find themselves pulled
into the role of "inferior disgusting foe," and then begin to play that
character against their will (a strange psychological process called
"projective counter-identification.") But note that the role comes from
the flamer, not from the victim. It's one piece of the troll's
deceit-based attack strategy, which is the real cause for disgust.
13. Pervasive, long-standing, intense symptoms:
Anyone can get angry and "flame" you. And everyone, including both you
and I, has a very large "troll" side to their personality. But having a
temper is not the same as having a mental illness. To have a "Personality
Disorder", a person has to become the symptoms, so their whole
world is
ruled by symptoms, and little human-ness remains. There is a difference
between acting like a troll from time to time, versus taking on full
Flamer-hood, 24/7. Of course Personality Disorders are also on a
spectrum;
just because I act normal occasionally doesn't mean I'm not an
FPD-flamer. A clue: if I have a very widespread reputation as "a
troll", then my problem might run deeper than occasional bursts of anger.
Another clue: if you clearly can see yourself in the symptoms I
describe above, then you're not at all self-blind and are probably normal.
:)
However, if you are CERTAIN that not the slightest SCRAP of the above
information could EVER apply to you in any possible way, and it's a
TERRIBLE INSULT that someone could even THINK such a thing about
you... well...
PART 2: About trolls: strategies, moderators' techiques
Detect yer concealed trolls/flamers. Avoiding being persuaded.
If your forum is constantly filled with annoying events, suspect the
presence of one or more concealed trolls/flamers. They carefully hide
inside a group, while
setting up others to attract moderator response, and expertly shifting
attention away from themselves. How to expose them?
1. A troll/flamer absolutely must always reply to your every! single! message!
They perceive normal postings as battle, and cannot simply walk away.
Therefore, they just simply must have the last word. Apparently
they cannot help themselves. So, if you start replying to them, they
invariably reply to your reply.
Therefore, just reply again!
That's the entire trick.
Then, to their consternation, a single thread can expand to days in
length. (I've sometimes let it go on for over a week, just to convince
every onlooker.) With normal people, this trick utterly fails. A
non-troll would just walk away, and stop responding to such silliness. A
genuine troll simply can't, and if we keep replying to them,
they'll panic, possibly losing sanity (becoming unable to read simple
sentences, or replying with irrational, mentally-disturbed postings.)
That, or they'll exhibit a mini-tantrum where out of the blue and without
warning, they inexplicably explode with towering rage, streams of blaming
and accusations, including covert complaints to moderators, or secretly
gathering all their followers to unexpectedly attack you, etc., etc.
Anything ...rather than simply halting, and NOT having the last word.
"If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil
deeds and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and
destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart
of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own
heart." -Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
2. Know your opponent. We can accurately read troll's minds.
The central feature of every FPD/flamer is their "disease of psychological
projection." This becomes very apparent, once you know the trick to
perceiving it. Simply examine the troll's accusations, look at all the
detailed descriptions trolls make of their 'obviously disgusting' foes
...and next, apply those accusations to the flamer instead. Usually
you'll find that they're quite relevant descriptions of the troll, even
insightful.
This allows a form of mind-reading. We can accurately see inside the
flamer,
by simply reflecting their insults: by using their extensive blaming-list
as a description of the troll's own hidden problems. Are they
accusing their target of being dishonest? Of plots and plans and secret
ploys? Are some hidden enemies scheming to destroy the troll's
reputation? Does the troll even seem borderline-paranoid, musing about
concealed
users plotting to
ruin the entire discussion-list? Well, actually they've just described
themselves: a dishonest plotter with a carefully concealed agenda to
damage the reputations of every (even slightly-suspected) opponent,
while they slowly derail the entire forum onto a dead-end path,
done secretly, and intentionally.
It's quite amazing how well these descriptions fit the troll. Also, it's
quite insane how poorly the descriptions match the troll's targets. It's
as if the troll is completely blind; blinded by staring into a sort of
'mirror,' which only lets them view their own worst features, while at the
same time convincing them that they're perceiving another person, as if
they were
expert mind-readers, easily seeing deep into other people's souls. (Their
mental expertise is genuine and quite immense ...expertise at seeing all
the details of their own "personal issues.")
"The world is a conspiracy organized for our benefit" - Spider
Robinson
3. Look for their mild "derogatory language," where their conversation is
filled with little put-downs, subtle accusations, insinuations, etc.
Trolls don't use neutral words to describe behavior. Instead they
constantly, constantly
paint others in disparaging terms, while
describing themselves in glowing terms. However, this never becomes
overt. They
must avoid getting caught. Instead it's a mild, but invariable behavior.
Once you're sensitized, you'll find this in their every posting. They're
using low-level character-assassination, ongoing subtle smear-campaigns to
build themselves up while talking others down. A stream of little
derisions, denigrations, and blaming applied to others, and greatly
amplified whenever they've selected an actual target/victim.
This constantly
trickles out of the flamer because they seem to suffer from "megalothymia"
- the need to be seen as being superior to others. Hence, they must
continuously inflate their own self-importance, while "inferior-i-tizing"
the people around them. The subtle message is "I'm perfect, but there's
something wrong with YOU!
Also, their current smear-campaign may be an advanced-prep leading to a
planned attack. First they silently "make a case" against their
selected target, carefully
convincing the onlookers that their next victim is genuinely evil.
(Always demonize, dehumanize first, ...only then destroy.) Next,
we can wait patiently for them to suddenly ...unexpectedly
...ATTACK!!!
Beware,
since all the other users on a forum may buy-into this delusional world,
become "followers" who thoughtlessly accept all the flamer's
denigration-talk, and may spontaneously attack the troll's target on their
own. A
moderator may be forced to remove not only the concealed source of the
constant strife, but also remove all the followers who were swayed by this
sort of "dark magic." If you suspect this to be the case, don't mess
around. Aggressively block/ban the trolls' every supporter. This is
major surgery, no getting around it. Clean out the rot. Only afterwards
should you restore individuals whom you can trust to not bring the same
problems roaring back again.
"Put an end once and for all to this discussion of what a good person
should be, and be one."
- Marcus Aurelius
4. Watch for instances of very obvious hypocrisy, the "self-serving bias."
Is one person accusing others of something they constantly do
themselves? Do they describe their own behavior in glowing terms, while
accusing their targets of exactly the same behavior ...but described in
derisive language? Are all of their exalted "deeds," when others do
exactly the same thing, suddenly described as disgusting "ploys?" That's
a clear signature of the flamer/troll. They must constantly apply
succinct negative labels to everything their opponent does (and succinct
positive labels to their own similar behavior.) Hint: read the
messages again, while removing all
emotional adjectives, all positive and negative labels. This allows us to
easily perceive that the troll accuses others of the same behaviors
which the troll does himself.
5. Trolls never ask questions. Trolls won't answer questions.
While in online
conversation, notice that the other person seems utterly incurious about
you. They won't ask questions to clarify what they clearly cannot know.
Even if you exhibit some
obvious mysteries and unknowns, where a normal person would quickly ask
you for
more info ...a troll never will. You can even explicitly pose some
important partial info, where in order to continue the conversation, they
must ask about it ...still they won't. WHY? Two reasons. FIRST,
as a
troll, I'm a huge liar, and I assume that everyone else is just like me.
If I asked YOU for info, I know you'd just lie about it, guaranteed. Why
should I ask questions, and listen to your lies? I might even be swayed
by them! Persuaded! And if others happen to be reading our exchange, my
asking you questions is giving you an opening, where you might
persuade
them! In the world of trolls, asking questions opens up major
vulnerabilities, and is always a huge mistake. You'll never make me do
it. SECOND, we sociopaths believe that we're perfect telepaths, and we
always can
read your mind. We know all about you and your evil plans. No need for
questions (especially when you'll just lie, and try to convince us that we
didn't read your mind after all!) Superior people can always see
right through the pathetic inferior types which surround us. No need to
ever question,
(and besides, asking questions would show everyone that we don't trust our
own telepathic
super- powers!) We have no good reason to ever ask you a question, and
very large reasons to avoid it, under any circumstances.
If in your messages, you ask a troll a question, they will always
ignore it
(pretending to be distracted by the rest of your message.) So instead,
try asking the question while also adding some minor comment. The troll
will ignore your question, and respond to the comment! (Now you know
you're probably dealing with a troll.) Finally, ask the question itself.
Just one sentence. Nothing else. The troll will either change the
subject entirely (perhaps answering a completely different question, or
perhaps suddenly responding to one of your previous
messages,) or instead, they'll just go silent. WHY? Being a former troll
myself,
it looks perfectly simple. I'm a huge liar, and I know that
everyone else is the same as me. So, if someone asks me a question, that
question is never what it seems, never innocent. Instead,
it's obviously
some sort of dishonest ploy, maybe an attempt to make me look bad. Or,
the questioner is fishing for ammo to use against me in the future.
Maybe you're trying to force me to tell obvious lies in public, so you
can
"catch" me, expose the embarrassing lie. Whatever it is, the best
response is to
pretend that you hadn't even asked. NEVER answer offhand questions.
NEVER respond to an explicit direct question. Never never never.
6. FPD/flamers never apologize! We never take responsibility for our
behavior.
When others complain about trolls' behavior, the troll won't
just apologize and get on with things. Next, if the situation escalates,
...nope, still no
taking responsibility. Escalates more, and they're brought under
moderator spotlight. They double-down, triple-down. No apologies,
just blaming, weaseling out from genuine
complaints, increasing this constantly, as more attention is focused on
all their past misdeeds. Perhaps you'll trigger a tantrum,
some self-important
raging. Then, rather than simply apologizing like a normal person would,
instead the flamer will
take their entire group of followers, and depart the forum in a huff!
(Heh, problem solved!)
On the other hand ...I've met a couple of FPD/flamers who obviously went
through
through the above process many times, were banned from everywhere ...and
now
finally they've learned the strategy of false-apology. Even faking
heartfelt apology. (Now we cannot apply the "flamers never apologize"
criterion!)
I think I've found a work-around which may cut through their
BS, but I haven't had a chance to try it myself. Just put them under the
control
of their victim. Publicly with great fanfare ban the troll, but only
allow them to return if their "loathsome" target(s) give the say-so. (As
a former troll myself, I think this would work quite well. Very
'old-testament,' where King Solomon reverses everything, sets the victim
above
the attacker, having the abuser vulnerable to abuse.) If it
doesn't
trigger the troll into insane raging ...perhaps they'll genuinely
perceive the error of their ways, stop all the faking, and actually make
things right with the people they've attacked.
-- And finally, where do I get all this stuff? Years ago I
was a troll myself!
It's very easy to see every detail of secret
troll-strategies and hidden flamer-behaviors, when all the reprehensible
and disgusting details are plainly on exhibit inside myself.
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