How To Handle Blog Trolls

Trolling is so common these days. Every top blog that you visit has a bunch of readers that have nothing better to do than troll. As Wikipedia describes:

a troll is someone who posts inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum, chat room or blog, with the primary intent of provoking other users into an emotional response or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion.

Trolls can take away from your community and even run your loyal readers out. I have seen many websites lose their loyal follower due to being slow to respond to trolls. Of course, every top site has some form of dealing with trolls. Whether it is warning these people or banning them, there are things bloggers can to put trolls in their place. Of course, not all trolls are created equal and not everyone is a troll. People use the term “troll” so loosely these days. Many call others who don’t agree with them trolls. So as a blogger you want to make sure you don’t classify your readers as trolls by mistake.

If you are struggling to deal with trolls and want to keep your community clean, here are 7 steps to deal with trolls:

• Psychology of a Troll: not all trolls are created equal. Some are just acting up when online while there are others who like to make unrelated and sometimes derogatory comments on your blog. In some cases, it may be possible to make these people understand why they should change their ways. Of course, for those who don’t, there are other ways to deal with them.
• Don’t Engage: one of the best ways to get rid of trolls is not by engaging them. If someone is coming to your blog and attacking every one of your posts, they may be just trolling. I personally would not remove these people as long as they are not being too loud and disrespectful. But I do not respond to them either, and in most cases they go away. 
• Be Respectful: never stoop down to the level of trolls who have nothing to do that insult you and your readers. Responding to someone who uses derogatory terms and is rude in a rude manner does not solve anything.
• Be Open: not everyone who disagrees with you is a troll. Everybody has a unique point of view on anything you can come up with. So don’t consider criticism by your readers as trolling.
• Ask Your Readers: it always helps to have a button in place for your readers to report trolls. What a better way to clean up your community by empowering your readers.
• Block Loud Trolls: it never hurts to give your readers the ability to block those who they consider to be trolls. Blogs that require users to log in to comment can easily implement such feature. If you can’t see what people who you have blocked are saying, you are not going to respond. That’s usually the end of the story.
• Warn/Ban Trolls: I always prefer warning people first before banning them. Sometimes people do not understand they are being disruptive to your community. Warning them might do the job. But if that does not work, don’t hesitate to ban.

There you have it. I personally do not ban trolls unless they use derogatory terms or are being extremely disruptive. For the rest, I let the community handle them. Of course, if you can’t handle trolls, you can jump all the way to step 7 and ban their IP. You owe it to your community to keep things as clean as possible.