I was reading over some of my old posts, including ones that involved other troll posts we had in the past, and you know what I noticed? There's actually a commonality that all trolls share.
Troll posts start off either as pessimism, nagging, or "jokes" that you have to literally struggle in order to find funny. Trolls post with the intention of getting a response, but the manner in which they do so is interpreted by others as rude and almost always offensive. They then pick at your reply, focusing purely on the negative or illogical statements and try to escalate the matter to the point of flaming or cutthroat sarcasm. From that point forward, a moderator takes control and the offensive posts get split/locked/deleted, and the member themselves get punished.
As for
why trolls act the way they do, it's more out of insecurity than anything else. They lack the optimism and faith that the majority of our fans do, and choose to focus only on the negative (e.g. seeing a glass as half empty rather than half full). Some trolls do get the point that their behavior is intolerable and take a hint, others never get the point and do it because they get pleasure from all the attention. The words they say are actually quite meaningless because they fail to hold up to logic and are usually myopic in nature.
That's why I no longer have patience for trolls, both in their infancy and those that decide to do it for a living. If I wanted to, I could make them regret the day they step foot into our forum.
However, our forum rules are are simple: if you post something offensive, you get punished. The consequences almost always co-relate in magnitude with the offence itself and its context, so these rules are clearly fair toward both sides.
