Best practice on Avoiding Trolls (and don't become one yourself)

Wellbeing Social
, ,
1

There is a lot of trolling going on these days in online conversations. Oftentimes it can be hard to identify a troll, and even harder to deal with them correctly. It is also possible that - maybe unwittingly - you become a troll yourself. Most important thing is to realize the following when engaging online: A conversation is not a contest!

I just found a superb digital literacy guide on how to Avoid Trolls. The guide exists at https://github.com/prettydiff/wisdom/blob/master/Avoiding_Trolls.md

I encourage anyone to contribute your improvements there and give a star to the repository.

Avoiding Trolls

Trolls, in the context of online personas, are people who engage in conversations seeking to destroy or suppress an opposing point of view or harass people. These personalities are often corrosive and divisive. Any attempt to engage a troll feeds the attention they seek even if the resulting conversation displays their foolishness. They cannot be defeated, but they can be ignored. Any attempt to challenge a troll validates their behavior and enables additional toxic behaviors.

Table of Contents

3 Likes
2

This is fantastic! Thanks. It fits in with things I’ve been researching and thinking about a lot.

Just finding my way around here but not being a programmer I do feel quite lost on this particular platform - I want to ask some challenging questions about perceptions, controlled opposition, civil rights etc but I am wary about saying what I really think because I really do want to have a conversation not a contest but this one thing I really need to talk about and focus on solutions for has become the biggest contest going right now. I’ll read the guide and let it sit for a few days while I work out how not to be a battering ram about it. Thank you.

1 Like
3

Update: It looks like the original page no longer exists. Luckily it existed on a git repository, so here is a link to the document:

1 Like