Talking to flamers, how do you do it?

[Ryu_Warrior]

I don't know where I should put this topic so I figured I'd put it here. Any suggestions where I can put this topic is widely appreciated!

[size=18][color=red][b]WARNING!! THIS IS A PRETTY LONG POST[/b][/color][/size]

So a couple of days before 2010, for the first time in about 4 years, I received a message from my first flamer. You know, the person who criticizes you for no apparent reason just to make you mad. I was actually amazed that I was able to get that kind of attention.

Ever.

This person said things like I'm a horrible artist and I wondered if I ever went to school or something. And said like it's the worst thing in the world.

Normally, most people would block someone who happen to throw rave comments like that or say something back, defending their pride and show the person up. They may just ignore them. But I didn't do that.

Instead, I praised the person.

I accepted and appreciated what this person said to me and I put it to heart. Mind you, I wasn't a suck-up. I kinda had to fight back but other than that, I was being nice and respectful.

I also warned this person that if this situation gets out of hand, a loooong heart-to-heart talk will commence and it will not stop unless the person decides to backs off.

What did we talk about? Ah, just stuff. I think at a certain point we (or at least I did) talked about hanging out and getting to know each other more. I treated this person like a friend. Not only because I was excited that this person was my first flamer, but because this person needed help.

If this person isn't going to learn, so be it. There are many more innocent users that person can terrorize. But long and behold this person was eventually banned from FAC. Now I have to determine if that person got banned before making the next move or just flat out gave up.

Either way, I won.

This is exactly the way I want everyone to respond when confronted by losers like that. If you're just going to simply block them and whine to the staff about flamers or maybe even withdraw from this website, then flamers will sense pure satisfaction.

Fight back. Be friendly. Be humble. But don't suck-up to their foolish words and don't treat them like a fool. You're better then that. You joined this website because you want to post your best work for everyone to see or you just want to make friends. You, however, did not join to fight with other users, leave that to the flamers. Whatever the case, you're an FAC member and you joined it for the purpose of posting artwork and other things that this website has to offer. And this also applies if you're in the internet in general. Keep a cool head and just...talk to them. If they don't like it, they'll just leave and find someone else. That's pure satisfaction on your part. Now if you are actually friends with the flamer...then that's a different story.

Thanks for reading up to this point. (I'm assuming that you did!) Visit my profile to see my conversation with the flamer.

Or if you're lazy, click [url=http://www.fanart-central.net/profile_full-Ryu_Warrior.php]here[/url].
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[color=orangered][size=20][b]When we both rule the world, we will be entertained by the little things.[/b][/size][/color]

[Littledawg]

I find the best (read most satisfying) way to deal with a persistent troll is to make a complete fool of him and turn the trolling around on him.

[Brianhjh]

[quote="Littledawg"]I find the best (read most satisfying) way to deal with a persistent troll is to make a complete fool of him and turn the trolling around on him.[/quote]


Nope, haven't worked yet.
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[img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v233/Brianhjh/emesprani151.gif[/img] "Sarah's future makes me sad." - Benk

[Ryu_Warrior]

But that's making a fool out of the troll, and that's what I did NOT do. If you're going to do that, then might as well be one.

Mind you that this is just a method that I used to fight them. I'm sure there are many different ways to fight the troll/flamer.

These things I'm saying is all in my opinion. Go figure.
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[color=orangered][size=20][b]When we both rule the world, we will be entertained by the little things.[/b][/size][/color]

[luckylace222]

:] I like your method of fighting flamers. Do the opposite, be nice and respectful. ;/ In reality, if you get to know them, it might turn out that they're a great friend, but if they are there to fight and that's it, then forget about them. You have other things to worry about.
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[size=10]“Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checked by failure...than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.” ~Theodore Roosevelt [/size]

[Littledawg]

Another good method: Starvation. no block, just....lol at them

[cstdenis]

tl;dr

Just ignore them.
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You will obey or molten silver will be poured into your ears.

[Ryu_Warrior]

[quote="luckylace222"]:] I like your method of fighting flamers. Do the opposite, be nice and respectful. ;/ In reality, if you get to know them, it might turn out that they're a great friend, but if they are there to fight and that's it, then forget about them. You have other things to worry about.[/quote]

Reverse psychology is that it all is. If you get smart with them chances are they're not going to get it and they'll stop because "whoa, this guy's a smartass. Ima leave this fag alone." or somewhere to that effect. It doesn't really matter what they say, you got a flamer off your back.

Now if they back that up with VALID justifications then that person is no longer a flamer. They become open-ended (and rather harsh) critics. I don't think I've seen that yet, especially if they just throw short phrases at you. It's probably just a kid. If it's not a kid then this person needs to get a life.
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[color=orangered][size=20][b]When we both rule the world, we will be entertained by the little things.[/b][/size][/color]

[Stratadrake]

[quote="cstdenis"]tl;dr

Just ignore them.[/quote]

^ The hardest method to deal with flamers, but if it really is a problem, first block them, then report them to a staff member.

Trolls are not welcome here, and since many are repeat offenders we have a tendency to ban-on-sight.
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[Ryu_Warrior]

[quote="Stratadrake"][quote="cstdenis"]tl;dr

Just ignore them.[/quote]

^ The hardest method to deal with flamers, but if it really is a problem, first block them, then report them to a staff member.

Trolls are not welcome here, and since many are repeat offenders we have a tendency to ban-on-sight.[/quote]

While I think there is nothing wrong with blocking and reporting, it's something I chose not to do. I seem to think that if they are reported by a crybaby or someone close the doors on them or they are just simply ignored, it creates "fun" for them. I may be off-road with that concept, but that's what I personally think. If you find one, by all means cap 'em on the spot. But flamers/trollers aren't going to go away; at least fight back so they won't bother you anymore. If they do go back, I'd know what to do.

My plan was to exploit them and hopefully a staff member finds them through close-monitoring of the comments going through FAC. Although this person was already banned, the user was still talking to me. Like I said the person either couldn't continue anymore because of the website or was straight dry of ideas then FAC took over.
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[color=orangered][size=20][b]When we both rule the world, we will be entertained by the little things.[/b][/size][/color]

[HerculesRockefeller]

You suck
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[Battou]

[quote="Stratadrake"][quote="cstdenis"]tl;dr

Just ignore them.[/quote]

^ The hardest method to deal with flamers, but if it really is a problem, first block them, then report them to a staff member.

Trolls are not welcome here, and since many are repeat offenders we have a tendency to ban-on-sight.[/quote]

I have not read the original post but I am going to add to this one.

Staff to report harrassing users to:

Admin:
Stratadrake
Battou

Abuse Team
unfocused
Dark_Angel_Of_Light

We keep detailed logs on trolls so we will be able to determin who is a repete offender and who is just trying to help and doing it wrong.


Unfortunately we are not able to moniter comments at this current time. with a few thouand comments a day the only way we are currently going to find them is through reports. you can't simply play along and expect them to get naild, I can almost garentee it will back fire and get you into more trouble than it's worth.

On a side note, I have already filed an official request for a new feature for FAC V-3.3 that would make timely detection of harrassing comments by staff possible. This is a long ways off so we still need the users to activly not tolerate harassment and report it to site staff.
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[Littledawg]

[quote="Stratadrake"][quote="cstdenis"]tl;dr

Just ignore them.[/quote]

^ The hardest method to deal with flamers, but if it really is a problem, first block them, then report them to a staff member.

Trolls are not welcome here, and since many are repeat offenders we have a tendency to ban-on-sight.[/quote]Is taunting said troll knowing they can't comment back part of the procedure? i've seen lots of trolls get extremely angry when people do this.

[cstdenis]

That'll just make things worse with sockpuppet accounts and such
_________________
You will obey or molten silver will be poured into your ears.

[luckylace222]

[quote]While I think there is nothing wrong with blocking and reporting, it's something I chose not to do. I seem to think that if they are reported by a crybaby or someone close the doors on them or they are just simply ignored, it creates "fun" for them. [/quote]
I don't like blocking because I don't like leaving arguments unfinished. I also look back at those comments for "memories."
_________________
[size=10]“Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checked by failure...than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.” ~Theodore Roosevelt [/size]

[Battou]

[quote="conversation"][quote="Littledawg"][quote="Stratadrake"][quote="cstdenis"]tl;dr

Just ignore them.[/quote]

^ The hardest method to deal with flamers, but if it really is a problem, first block them, then report them to a staff member.

Trolls are not welcome here, and since many are repeat offenders we have a tendency to ban-on-sight.[/quote]Is taunting said troll knowing they can't comment back part of the procedure? i've seen lots of trolls get extremely angry when people do this.[/quote][quote="cstdenis"]That'll just make things worse with sockpuppet accounts and such[/quote][/quote]

Littledawg, you should understand this better than any one, you have experienced the side effect of the drastic countermeasures we have been forced to install due to behaivior of irritated trolls and their expansive sock puppet reserves. This side effect is the potential for termination of innocent accounts. Account terminations happen when a noteworthy connection to a troll is established. With this practice in place only one mistake seems to have been made but is not yet confirmed. Yeah, I'll be honest you are still being monitered and likely will be for some time to come, but that potential for error is the answer to every ones question as to why have you not been banned yet. The termination of the Bigdawg account was made when a connection was made less than an hour after registry, A connection I have used over a dozen times accurately. the odds of a user inadvertantly making the mistake that was made by the Bigdawg account are so very slim, A few hundred million to one slim and when paired with the time frame it gets even slimmer.

If the mistake is confirmed, you would be the first mistaken ban in an anti trolling effort that has been in practice for nearly a year (02/19/2009 To be precice).

Blocking trolls and then taunting them is the worst practice that can be made it only makes things tougher on the user, site staff and it burdens our servers with tons of unnecessary comments and useraccounts made to evade blocks and bans.
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[Brianhjh]

[quote]you have experienced the side effect of the drastic countermeasures we have been forced to install due to behaivior of irritated trolls and their expansive sock puppet reserves.[/quote]

Not a side effect.
_________________
[img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v233/Brianhjh/emesprani151.gif[/img] "Sarah's future makes me sad." - Benk

[Ryu_Warrior]

Geez, guys. I guess some of you are missing the point here.

I'm trying to make it easier for the staff here to run FAC. Wouldn't be glorious not to have someone cry to you because some jackass was being a dick on a daily basis? The reason why I did what I did because I don't want to get in a bigger conflict with the staff if I were to...ah let see...fight with the troll, maybe? Battou's quote below supports my ideal:

[quote="Battou"]Blocking trolls and then taunting them is the worst practice that can be made it only makes things tougher on the user, site staff and it burdens our servers with tons of unnecessary comments and useraccounts made to evade blocks and bans.[/quote]

I could have done that but it's not in my mindset to do it. In fact, I wasn't even thinking about doing that.

[quote="Littledawg"]Is taunting said troll knowing they can't comment back part of the procedure? i've seen lots of trolls get extremely angry when people do this.[/quote]

Why do you need to shoot the beast if it's already dead? If they don't talk back, you shouldn't either. Really, you have to treat everyone like you treat yourself. If you hold yourself to a lower standard, then friend, you need a reality check. There's more to the internet than just provoking flamers/trolls. If you're going to do that, might as well be one. I'm sure FAC wouldn't appreciate it anymore than you do.

The reason why I'm talking to you this way because you need to realize you're not alone in this virtural world. The internet isn't (and it hasn't been) a safe place anymore and you have to be careful. If a troll bothers you, by all means report it; I'm not saying that you can't. That's what the staff is for, they're here to moderate the website. But like I said, wouldn't it be easier for them if they don't have to deal with trolls?

[quote="luckylace222"]I don't like blocking because I don't like leaving arguments unfinished. I also look back at those comments for "memories."[/quote]

My point exactly. You're my new best friend.

[quote="HerculesRockefeller"]You suck[/quote]

...Are you testing me?
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[color=orangered][size=20][b]When we both rule the world, we will be entertained by the little things.[/b][/size][/color]

[HerculesRockefeller]

No. Not even remotely.
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[Ryu_Warrior]

So why did you say that?
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[color=orangered][size=20][b]When we both rule the world, we will be entertained by the little things.[/b][/size][/color]