I started trolling back - occasionally. In order to troll back you need to know how to troll, because the chance of a fruitful conversation is very low. Nice stories like the one above are... nice, but outliers. The problem is there will never be another "meeting" between the two parties, so putting effort into the "relationship" is just not worth it - please note that I'm not giving normative advice here, this is a description, "game theory" like. Places like HN and reddit are almost exclusively for chance meetings of people who will never meet again, or if they do won't realize it because there are too many user IDs.
Key points to troll - and I collected those points over years, watching my own reactions, what frustrated me the most:
- Never act smart - act stupid! There is nothing that riles people more than "stupid", especially when it's directed at you. Also, it is much harder to get through to a stupid person. After all, arguments don't work!
- Don't bother putting any effort into your replies! Goes with the first point, but it also helps you remain detached. Whenever the other guy posts a reply, don't bother reading it, just post your prepared (stupid) statement. At some point it's enough to post the same thing again and again. It shows the other person how futile their position is. Also helps to keep the effort you put in very low.
- Reply (mechanically!) for as long as needed. I have never met someone who would stop a lot sooner than me. Simply because I have next to zero emotional investment with the above methods, and it costs very little time, such a response is just mechanical. They put so much effort in though that it feels like losing, which is mirrored in their replies.
- Caution: If you do end up with any emotional investment at all, the moment you stop before the other person does you will feel bad. Really bad. You will dread the next time you open reddit (for example) and see the red icon on the inbox, because you know it's going to be another response. The only way to avoid this is to do the whole thing mechanically. Imagine you are an mobile carrier company's customer service person. Instead, you want the other person to feel that way!
- Responding quickly for a while is okay. However, what is far more effective at getting under people's skin is when you continue the next day or even days later. Imagine your own experiences: You were caught in a nasty troll fight. It is over, you go back to normal. Two days later, out of the blue, you expect nothing but normal conversations - you click on your reddit inbox - and there is a very nasty reply continuing that dreaded trolling thread! It's not over at all, your troll has stamina! See above, this is doable at no emotional cost to yourself only if you have no emotional investment. If your mind is healthy no amount of impersonal Internet-based anger lingers on to the next day, not normally! Instead, if you were emotionally involved, the last thing you want the next day is to even think of that nasty exchange. So if you plan to be a long-term troll: Make sure you are not invested at all. I think I repeated this piece of advice a few times by now. It is key. And the key to this key is to be "stupid", if you think you cannot help but be invested, or at least I can't help it.
When do I do this? Whenever somebody replies to a comment that I put a lot of effort in, so it wasn't just some funny joke (on those comments I take the downvotes like a man and don't care), and when it is obvious that they don't care about the actual subject, instead I somehow triggered an emotional response (in 1 out of 1,000 people, it's unavoidable) and all they are after is to "get me" (emotionally).
Why do I do it? I want to put a cost on their trolling. You troll me for my honest, long and well-thought-out comment I want you to pay.
So I don't know what people reading this might think, I realize it depends a lot on context, but I can't think of an example right now. It's not like I do that every day, it's rare.
Should I ever meet my match it does not matter - because since I only posted mechanical replies I don't really care. I could stop at any point if I find something better to do. It really feels more like a chore. I don't enjoy it, but it's "a job" at that point.
----------------------------
I would like to say a lot more about the reasons for trolling, but there already is so much text now...
Anyway, one reason that I already hinted at and would like to talk about more is that no actual real conversation is possible!
I invest a lot of time at a great and well-sourced reply - and what does it gain me? 10 people read it, 5 misunderstand or don't care. I don't build any reputation, I don't build any followers - while you can do that, sort-of, on reddit for example (and there's a "friend" feature here I think, no idea what it actually does) if anyone uses it at all it certainly is niche.
These discussion forums by their nature encourage memes and jokes and 1-3 paragraph "short stories" at most. Each topic must be started, talked about and completed within a handful of sentences per person, at most. Anything deeper and more meaningful is not actually possible, at least not on a statistically meaningful scale.
So sometimes, when a topic would require exactly that, longer conversations, I just give up. I don't even try to convince that guy who misunderstood my comment, I take the shortcut, frustrated less about the comment and the person but about the medium.
The moderation system also helps (i.e. it doesn't), that's yet another topic I could write a few pages about. I have come to the opinion that it would be better not to have any negative votes at all. The few comments that really deserve it are outweighed by the many many more that don't, where somebody just didn't like it. Downvotes create frustration when they come unexpectedly, i.e. especially when somebody put an actual and honest effort into a comment.
I started trolling back - occasionally. In order to troll back you need to know how to troll, because the chance of a fruitful conversation is very low. Nice stories like the one above are... nice, but outliers. The problem is there will never be another "meeting" between the two parties, so putting effort into the "relationship" is just not worth it - please note that I'm not giving normative advice here, this is a description, "game theory" like. Places like HN and reddit are almost exclusively for chance meetings of people who will never meet again, or if they do won't realize it because there are too many user IDs.
Key points to troll - and I collected those points over years, watching my own reactions, what frustrated me the most:
- Never act smart - act stupid! There is nothing that riles people more than "stupid", especially when it's directed at you. Also, it is much harder to get through to a stupid person. After all, arguments don't work!
- Don't bother putting any effort into your replies! Goes with the first point, but it also helps you remain detached. Whenever the other guy posts a reply, don't bother reading it, just post your prepared (stupid) statement. At some point it's enough to post the same thing again and again. It shows the other person how futile their position is. Also helps to keep the effort you put in very low.
- Reply (mechanically!) for as long as needed. I have never met someone who would stop a lot sooner than me. Simply because I have next to zero emotional investment with the above methods, and it costs very little time, such a response is just mechanical. They put so much effort in though that it feels like losing, which is mirrored in their replies.
- Caution: If you do end up with any emotional investment at all, the moment you stop before the other person does you will feel bad. Really bad. You will dread the next time you open reddit (for example) and see the red icon on the inbox, because you know it's going to be another response. The only way to avoid this is to do the whole thing mechanically. Imagine you are an mobile carrier company's customer service person. Instead, you want the other person to feel that way!
- Responding quickly for a while is okay. However, what is far more effective at getting under people's skin is when you continue the next day or even days later. Imagine your own experiences: You were caught in a nasty troll fight. It is over, you go back to normal. Two days later, out of the blue, you expect nothing but normal conversations - you click on your reddit inbox - and there is a very nasty reply continuing that dreaded trolling thread! It's not over at all, your troll has stamina! See above, this is doable at no emotional cost to yourself only if you have no emotional investment. If your mind is healthy no amount of impersonal Internet-based anger lingers on to the next day, not normally! Instead, if you were emotionally involved, the last thing you want the next day is to even think of that nasty exchange. So if you plan to be a long-term troll: Make sure you are not invested at all. I think I repeated this piece of advice a few times by now. It is key. And the key to this key is to be "stupid", if you think you cannot help but be invested, or at least I can't help it.
When do I do this? Whenever somebody replies to a comment that I put a lot of effort in, so it wasn't just some funny joke (on those comments I take the downvotes like a man and don't care), and when it is obvious that they don't care about the actual subject, instead I somehow triggered an emotional response (in 1 out of 1,000 people, it's unavoidable) and all they are after is to "get me" (emotionally).
Why do I do it? I want to put a cost on their trolling. You troll me for my honest, long and well-thought-out comment I want you to pay.
So I don't know what people reading this might think, I realize it depends a lot on context, but I can't think of an example right now. It's not like I do that every day, it's rare.
Should I ever meet my match it does not matter - because since I only posted mechanical replies I don't really care. I could stop at any point if I find something better to do. It really feels more like a chore. I don't enjoy it, but it's "a job" at that point.
----------------------------
I would like to say a lot more about the reasons for trolling, but there already is so much text now...
Anyway, one reason that I already hinted at and would like to talk about more is that no actual real conversation is possible!
I invest a lot of time at a great and well-sourced reply - and what does it gain me? 10 people read it, 5 misunderstand or don't care. I don't build any reputation, I don't build any followers - while you can do that, sort-of, on reddit for example (and there's a "friend" feature here I think, no idea what it actually does) if anyone uses it at all it certainly is niche.
These discussion forums by their nature encourage memes and jokes and 1-3 paragraph "short stories" at most. Each topic must be started, talked about and completed within a handful of sentences per person, at most. Anything deeper and more meaningful is not actually possible, at least not on a statistically meaningful scale.
So sometimes, when a topic would require exactly that, longer conversations, I just give up. I don't even try to convince that guy who misunderstood my comment, I take the shortcut, frustrated less about the comment and the person but about the medium.
The moderation system also helps (i.e. it doesn't), that's yet another topic I could write a few pages about. I have come to the opinion that it would be better not to have any negative votes at all. The few comments that really deserve it are outweighed by the many many more that don't, where somebody just didn't like it. Downvotes create frustration when they come unexpectedly, i.e. especially when somebody put an actual and honest effort into a comment.