And no, I’m not talking about the ones that lurk under the bridge and demand to be fed goats, I’m talking about internet trolls.

Chances are, most of us have run into the type before.  We’ve all seen the drunk guy at the party who can’t stop screaming no matter how much you tell him to shut up–well, the internet troll is this guy, the key difference being that he can actually now drink AND scream at the same time.  Plus, he doesn’t have to get up for work the next day, nor does he particularly care about leaving the party, and forget about calling the cops on this schlub.

So what can you do?  Well, sure, you can ban anybody you like from reading your site.  But getting rid of readers?  Of a lure for potential advertisers?  That’s counterproductive at best and suicidally stupid at worst.  The best thing you can do is either make the troll want to leave, or in the best case scenario, convince the troll to become another reader.  Here are some troll-busting strategies the next time your comments section gets infested by drooling screaming halfwits:

1. Take them seriously.  There are few things in life that make a troll less entertained by the world around him than to not be able to start a fight.  When someone in your blog leaves a comment like “D00D YR SITE SUXXORZ”, ask him why he thinks that.  Chances are he’ll never respond, and that’ll kill the troll in that thread.  Maybe even bring him around toward straight readership.

2. Ignore the unintelligible.  This is an easy one.  Pretend you don’t speak leet or any derivation thereto.  So when someone comes wailing in with their aggressive brand of internet speak, like you just saw above, pretend you didn’t see it.  Or failing that, ask if something is wrong with their translation software.  If you know any languages outside of your home language, offer to speak that instead to “make things easier”.

3, Respond only to comments you can read and understand.  This will go a long way toward baffling trolls–they love to rapidly sling pointless comments.

4. Understand their principle motivation.  All of the last three comments boil down to essentially one thing: trolls feed and thrive on attention.  Any time you can pull attention off the troll, by ignoring him or by refusing to take him seriously (I’m using the generic “he” here, trolls can also be women) you destroy his primary motivation.

These are just four simple ways that you can improve the community of your blog, as well as strike a blow for decency and morality in one clean and simple package.

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