How To Keep Hostile Jerks From Taking Over Your Online Community

[SKA]

Interesting read:

http://www.informati...?articleID=199600005

SKA

[Deozaan]

His solution is to find a "troll-whisperer"? Lame! What a waste of a 4 page article.

Sure it's interesting, but not at all useful.

[ewemoa]

The "10-minute delay before posts make it through" idea was interesting to me.

On a side note, I've often wondered whether I couldn't configure accounts I post from to have "scheduled" sending -- so I can compose a message (usually a response) and if I don't do anything about it, have it sent after some default amount of time.  The key thing here being that I don't have to do anything for it to get sent at some point, but I get some time to consider editing my message.

I don't suppose this is already possible...

[mouser]

On a side note, I've often wondered whether I couldn't configure accounts I post from to have "scheduled" sending -- so I can compose a message (usually a response) and if I don't do anything about it, have it sent after some default amount of time.

many email clients have such a feature.

[ewemoa]

What about forums?

I guess with a message-composing client that could interface w/ forums this may already be possible...

Hmm, I guess I should really look into whether there are usable forum-interfacing clients...I know there used to be a mail client that could do this sort of thing, but I haven't used non-web-based mail clients in years

(How telling that it would have been nice for me to use this functionality for this particular message...)

[40hz]

One of the more interesting technical approaches I've heard about for dealing with trolls is to send them into The Phantom Zone. The Phantom Zone is just a hidden forum database that mirrors the real one.

People identified as trolls are automatically routed to the Phantom Zone forum. From there, they can read all the real mirrored postings. They can also troll and flame to their hearts content. But nobody on the real forum ever sees what the troll has posted. He has ceased to exist. But from the troll's perspective nothing is any different. He thinks he's still in the real forum. This is the key to why it works. If it were otherwise, the troll could just register under a new name and resume causing trouble.

Eventually the troll gets tired of being 'ignored' and wanders off to annoy somebody else after posting a few dozen rants that nobody will ever read or respond to. Hasta la vista, Baby!

The Phantom Zone - It's a beautiful thing!




BTW: Some particularly crotchety forum operators have been known to add additional wrinkles to the Phantom Zone concept. Common tweaks include: slowing down server response times; randomly mangling part or all of the troll's postings; faux timeouts and lockups; bogus "Forum Down for Maintenance - Please try us again later." messages, etc.

Possibly cathartic, but IMHO hardly worth the effort.

[ewemoa]

I'd heard of this approach but I guess it's not likely to work so well if trolls are aware of the existence of the technique -- one can check whether one is in a phantom zone via another account, no?

Nice images, btw

[40hz]

I'd heard of this approach but I guess it's not likely to work so well if trolls are aware of the existence of the technique -- one can check whether one is in a phantom zone via another account, no?

-ewemoa (November 13, 2008, 04:16 PM)

Yes you can. That's why a lot of sites also pay attention to the IP addresses of the people who are causing problems. You can frequently catch banned users who are attempting to re-register that way. If push comes to shove you can also deny registration requests from a block of IP addresses; or deny access altogether. But this is a very aggressive tactic and is usually employed only when complaints to the troll's ISP go nowhere.

[mahesh2k]

lol 40hz for phantom zone Pic

BTW that article is pure 

[zridling]

Phantom zone? Seems misnamed; maybe 'Jerk zone'? 

[CWuestefeld]

That's why a lot of sites also pay attention to the IP addresses of the people who are causing problems. You can frequently catch banned users who are attempting to re-register that way. If push comes to shove you can also deny registration requests from a block of IP addresses; or deny access altogether.

-40hz (November 13, 2008, 09:33 PM)

Way back in the day, I was active on a hacker/phreaker BBS. To keep out the "bad" guys, we had a unique security feature. During login, the BBS would send a "+++" to get into the modem's command mode, then issue the command to query the device's serial number, and then put the modem back into normal mode. This would prevent anyone getting in with a stolen password, unless they had also stolen the user's modem as well.

[40hz]

I was active on a hacker/phreaker BBS. To keep out the "bad" guys, we had a unique security feature. During login, the BBS would send a "+++" to get into the modem's command mode, then issue the command to query the device's serial number, and then put the modem back into normal mode.

-CWuestefeld (November 14, 2008, 05:04 PM)

Were you the guy that came up with that? I had a script given to me for my Wildcat! BBS that did that. I always wanted to thank whoever came up with the idea. I only really needed it one time, but that one time was a lifesaver.

Sweet hack!

[40hz]

Phantom zone? Seems misnamed; maybe 'Jerk zone'? 

-zridling (November 14, 2008, 04:25 PM)

How about Jerkwater Junction?