…then you’re doing something wrong. That said, it doesn’t make it any easier.
I received my very first troll comment over on HumaneIA this morning. I feel all grown up now 
I am not sure what got this guy’s attention, but he doesn’t like anything that I’ve written there, especially my article on meta-thinking. Perhaps I insulted a relative of his, or maybe he is feeling cocky because England finally beat Australia in a sporting competition, I don’t know.
I looked at the website that his email address shares a domain with, and it is one of those “we don’t have to tell you what we do on our home page, because if you have to ask then we don’t want to bother with you” too-cool-for-school web design houses. So, the guy (or his boss) is a total tool. Perhaps I should have marked the comment as spam, but like I said to him, I am genuinely interested in why he doesn’t like my face.
One thing I do know for sure, based on past experience as an online community volunteer, is that I’m not going to feed his insanity by posting a link to his site.
What would you do in my situation?
Ignore him - that is the only way to deal with trolls. Also delete his comments. He’ll soon give up.
It’s your blog and people have to play by your rules - do you have a comments policy there? If not it might be time to make one.
Cheers,
Snoskred
Hi Snos,
thank you for your comment.
I think that my comments policy might be something like “this is my blog, and if you don’t like it, you can eat my shorts”
Seriously though, I do expect to be called out if I say something too wild - but a lot of peers that I know and respect both here and overseas had already seen that particular post and had been OK with it. People who are world leaders in their field. Ergo, the guy is an idiot, and the opinions of the worthless are not worth much at all.
Thanks, Andrew
hey Andrew
I keep re-reading the ‘troll’ comment, and although clearly he’s far from your no.1 fan, he doesn’t really strike me as a troll either. I think he just has quite different opinions to yours.
Now, your blog is your own space of course, and how you settle your comment policy is your own call, but I think that removing comments that really just disagree with you (either that particular post or your general take on things) as suggested by the first comment isn’t really fair play. If you have comments open, it should be to facilitate a discussion - and there’s no rules to say that discussions all have to be happy and agreeable.
I know it’s really quite hard not to take these kinds of comments personally, but they can actually be the very thing to open up even more interesting discussions on your blog. Some of my favourite comment threads on my blog have come from one or more of us disagreeing
I think that the best thing you can do is try to take as much of the ‘personal’ out of the interaction as possible… just ignore anything personal that he may have said and try to avoid getting personal in your own remarks, and just debate the actually comment on its merit.
Of course - much more easily said than done, and a negative reaction really does smart. They get easier and easier to handle
(which is intended to be reassuring but could equally be the exact opposite).
Hi Leisa,
thank you for your comment.
I’m happy when people disagree - and I am willing to learn, and I want to not take it personally, but… it is hard to take patronising instruction on HCD from someone with that kind of home page
Best regards, Andrew
Hi Andrew,
I have to say that I agree with Leisa. I don’t think the label troll applies here (not my understanding of it anyway). I know it can be hard but I’d welcome comments like that - I certainly wouldn’t delete them. Now I just have to remember this when I read the next comment compeletely disagreeing with something I write
Hi Christine,
a follow up comment from Robert suggests that he didn’t mean to come across as such an twit - I think it was a combination of his junior diplomat language and what he saw as constructive criticism - at a time when I was moving house and didn’t have time to let it slide past me.
I think the bit that I found offensive was his wholesale dismissal of HumaneIA - it didn’t make sense, and this is what led to my categorising him as a troll. I think that you are right though, we all walk a fine line between constructive criticism and rudeness.
Best regards, Andrew
Unless they are completely disruptive or outright disgusting, I say DO NOT delete negative comments.
Someone disagrees with you so much they had to let you know. They care what you and your readers think!
I’ve read the comment in question and it’s really not a troll comment at all IMO. He’s actually forming a coherent thought. Trolls just hide, coming out to bash people without reason.
Now, whether his opinion is honest or if he’s just pooping on you for kicks is another question entirely.
Hi Wormbrain,
thank you for your comment.
I think that the biggest error was not the forming of an opinion but the communication of it.
There is a level of pride in the web design industry - some of it can lead to some fairly aggressive online behaviour - it is hard to say whether the troll label was justified or not. Selling the right argument in an offensive way is still trollery to me - but I could be wrong there.
Best regards, Andrew