I'm actually kind of scared to post here, on account of all the bans.

[Owyn_Merrilin]

Flaming
Calling people names (or groups who may visit The Escapist), this includes calling others a troll
Trolling
Posting inflammatory, extraneous or off-topic messages with the primary intent of provoking readers into an emotional

So someone trolls and gets a warning. I call them on their bullshit and also get a warning!

This has happened to me numerous times, hence why I'm one strike from a permaban. But, as I've told the mods before (more than once!), I don't need to run crying to someone else, I'm perfectly capable of slapping someone down myself (possibly too capable!). And I'm always proven right with the people I choose to hate.

My first piece of advice to any newbies, is to master the art of passive-aggression. Be a wuss and fail to insult people properly. Being a sneaky coward will get you far......sticking to your guns won't!!

Contrary to what the person below you said, it's not just about feeding the troll. If you call someone a troll, it actually counts as flaming under the rules. One of the few warnings I've had since joining was for calling a blatant troll (who got either suspended or banned in the same thread) a troll.

Edit: Basically it's that whole mentality of "Yeah, he was breaking much more serious rules than you were, but you also broke a rule, so you're both going to get punished for your crimes." Interestingly enough, calling someone a troll is an almost guaranteed warning. Saying someone is trolling, however, is generally safe, in my experience. Why changing it from the noun the verb makes it less offensive, I don't know, but there really does seem to be a difference in the way the rule is enforced based on the form of the word you use.

 

[Private Custard]

Flaming
Calling people names (or groups who may visit The Escapist), this includes calling others a troll
Trolling
Posting inflammatory, extraneous or off-topic messages with the primary intent of provoking readers into an emotional

So someone trolls and gets a warning. I call them on their bullshit and also get a warning!

This has happened to me numerous times, hence why I'm one strike from a permaban. But, as I've told the mods before (more than once!), I don't need to run crying to someone else, I'm perfectly capable of slapping someone down myself (possibly too capable!). And I'm always proven right with the people I choose to hate.

My first piece of advice to any newbies, is to master the art of passive-aggression. Be a wuss and fail to insult people properly. Being a sneaky coward will get you far......sticking to your guns won't!!

It's not a case of sticking to your guns, it's a case of you 'feeding the troll.'
A trolls purpose is to piss you off and get a reaction - calling them out on their trollness is exactly that.
Then they can start arguing with you like trolls do and it'll erupt into a pointless flame war which the 'pist tries to avoid on these boards.

Basically, don't give them any attention. They'll act up even more, pissing you off in the process and you both end up looking silly.
They're just kids having a tantrum or they have no purpose in life.
If you see obviously trolling comments such as "I think all people called Steve need to be killed" don't even rise to it.
It's saddening to think some people might have such terrible opinions and I've been unsure a few times myself if people on here are joking or not but arguing will accomplish nothing.

If you MUST say something, send the user a PM. I'm in no way advocating arguing via messages but if you feel you can keep a level head and ask why they hold such a strong opinion (and possibly advise them against posting it online), it stops otherwise good threads from getting locked because of arguments.

Really, you can't change someone's opinion no matter how much you disagree with it or label it as flame bait.

I don't tend to feed blatant trolls. But I find it quite easy to spot people who are really, genuine dickheads.

If you don't let these people know, they'll carry on regardless. That's not good, the world has far too many dickheads because people tip-toe around them!

Contrary to what the person below you said, it's not just about feeding the troll. If you call someone a troll, it actually counts as flaming under the rules. One of the few warnings I've had since joining was for calling a blatant troll (who got either suspended or banned in the same thread) a troll.

That's what bothers me the most, getting a warning for being right!

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

Flaming
Calling people names (or groups who may visit The Escapist), this includes calling others a troll
Trolling
Posting inflammatory, extraneous or off-topic messages with the primary intent of provoking readers into an emotional

So someone trolls and gets a warning. I call them on their bullshit and also get a warning!

This has happened to me numerous times, hence why I'm one strike from a permaban. But, as I've told the mods before (more than once!), I don't need to run crying to someone else, I'm perfectly capable of slapping someone down myself (possibly too capable!). And I'm always proven right with the people I choose to hate.

My first piece of advice to any newbies, is to master the art of passive-aggression. Be a wuss and fail to insult people properly. Being a sneaky coward will get you far......sticking to your guns won't!!

It's not a case of sticking to your guns, it's a case of you 'feeding the troll.'
A trolls purpose is to piss you off and get a reaction - calling them out on their trollness is exactly that.
Then they can start arguing with you like trolls do and it'll erupt into a pointless flame war which the 'pist tries to avoid on these boards.

Basically, don't give them any attention. They'll act up even more, pissing you off in the process and you both end up looking silly.
They're just kids having a tantrum or they have no purpose in life.
If you see obviously trolling comments such as "I think all people called Steve need to be killed" don't even rise to it.
It's saddening to think some people might have such terrible opinions and I've been unsure a few times myself if people on here are joking or not but arguing will accomplish nothing.

If you MUST say something, send the user a PM. I'm in no way advocating arguing via messages but if you feel you can keep a level head and ask why they hold such a strong opinion (and possibly advise them against posting it online), it stops otherwise good threads from getting locked because of arguments.

Really, you can't change someone's opinion no matter how much you disagree with it or label it as flame bait.

I don't tend to feed blatant trolls. But I find it quite easy to spot people who are really, genuine dickheads.

If you don't let these people know, they'll carry on regardless. That's not good, the world has far too many dickheads because people tip-toe around them!

I've always preferred the public shaming method for trolls, myself. It was commonly used on USENET back in the day, and is still used on Gamefaqs today. It may not do much to discourage the trolls, but once a specific poster gets a reputation for trolling, it doesn't take long for the other posters to learn it, and to shun them and any threads they start. Much more effective consequence than a ban, which are usually handed out as well, but often dodged with alt accounts. Unfortunately, you can only implement this method on forums that don't have a rule against calling a spade a spade.

 

[EeveeElectro]

-snip-

Unfortunately, they exist in the real world and online. And there's not much we can do about them.
I've called someone a **** until I'm blue on the face (In real life, and not literally blue ) Did it change his behaviour? Did it heck. Some people are just terrible human beings and you can't help them or they don't want help because they think they're just super the way they are.
Just like in real life, I don't give them the time of the day and focus on the nice people on this site instead, there's plenty of them.

Oh, you get a lot of troll defenders too. Someone was calling me a **** and a retard once on here and when I told him to stop trolling I just got a load of "OMG!!! he's not trolling he's just being honest!!1!"

That was a couple of years ago at least...

 

[IceForce]

I haven't personally had any run-ins with the mods, so I can't comment on that.

Though I will say, the moderation seems to be pretty inconsistent at times. At least from my perspective, anyway.
I quite often see people getting smacked down for something that I've seen other people getting away with.

I still don't like that banned .gif though. It seems like a kick in the teeth, especially if it's someone who has racked up >2000 posts. Like Vault101. I actually didn't appreciate her contribution to the forums; I thought she was rather loud and rude at times, but a lot of people did appreciate her. I think it's a bit unnecessary to give her the permabanned avatar, because she had a lot of friends. But what are you gonna do?

Actually, Vault101 never got slapped with the permabanned avatar...
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/18.403500-Vault101s-guide-to-writing-awsome-storys

So once again, it's inconsistent.

I dunno. Do the mods only slap that avatar on people they don't like?

 

[IceForce]

Interestingly enough, calling someone a troll is an almost guaranteed warning. Saying someone is trolling, however, is generally safe, in my experience. Why changing it from the noun the verb makes it less offensive, I don't know, but there really does seem to be a difference in the way the rule is enforced based on the form of the word you use.

Saying someone is trolling, however, is generally safe, in my experience.

Actually, that's not true.

I've seen other examples like that too, but I think the threads may have been deleted, as I can't find them now.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

Interestingly enough, calling someone a troll is an almost guaranteed warning. Saying someone is trolling, however, is generally safe, in my experience. Why changing it from the noun the verb makes it less offensive, I don't know, but there really does seem to be a difference in the way the rule is enforced based on the form of the word you use.

Saying someone is trolling, however, is generally safe, in my experience.

Actually, that's not true.

I've seen other examples like that too, but I think the threads may have been deleted, as I can't find them now.

I'd honestly chalk that one up either to the vague rules causing inconsistent enforcement, or to the actual offending posts being further up in the thread, and that just being the last one to get flagged. Kind of weird either way, that post was really not that bad. The tone was probably a bit more hostile than would normally be safe, but not by much.