Tromping Trolls
by Molly Jo Realy @RealMojo68
Social media is one of those love-hate relationships. There’s a lot of good buzz it can create, but there’s also a bitter aftertaste if a troll decides to attack your territory.
It’s important to understand the difference between trolls and someone who just doesn’t like you. You have every right to delete inflammatory comments and keep peace on your pages, but be careful to not manipulate the system so you’re only seeing the sunny side of things. If a person voices their dislike, let them know it’s okay and different people have different views.
When those views, comments, reviews, and posts turn into hurt and hate, it’s time to tromp that troll!
What’s a troll? Well, they’re not those cute little dolls from the 80s. No, the trolls I’m talking about are people who actively seek out posts with the intent of posting, well, less than sweet comments. They start arguments, throw insults, and pretty much like to turn things sideways.
One of the ways you can conquer these little nuisances is to have a comment filter on your blog settings. These automatically search for words you’ve flagged as offensive or inappropriate. You may want to take it a step further and add a captcha filter. This requires the commenter to manually type numbers and/or letters they see in a small photo, to prove they’re not a robot or automated reply. On most social media sites, you can report inappropriate comments and block users.
Trolls can be hard to handle. It’s always a good idea to never respond. Even when you feel like defending yourself, clarifying your position, or just plain stopping the madness. Trolls feed off the chaos they create. If you stop responding to them, most of the time they’ll move on.
CLICK TO TWEET: Frankly, My Dear . . . : Tromping Trolls
With some sweet tea, a spoonful of honey, and some heavy Army boots,
~ Happy writing.
Molly Jo
And Frankly, My Dear . . . That’s all she wrote!
I had one recently that left a couple of comments, and has done so at other blogs I follow. The guy has a reputation going back for years as a profoundly misogynistic pig who despises American women (pretty much any woman who speaks her mind, really) and spams blogs with links for his site.
I look at it this way: someday when a person like that dies, nobody’s going to care, and the only people who show up at their funeral will just be there to make sure they’re really dead.
William Kendall recently posted..Shenanigans
Trolls are vicious, indeed. I’m thankful there are more of you than them out there.
Molly Jo recently posted..Frankly, On Faith: Cast the First Stone