Calling Troll On New Posters

[Tanishq]

Trolls want to annoy members as it is their motive. They will try anything, pick up anything from anywhere which is damn annoying.

 

[BlueOrange]

I think "Are you in the right class?" is a really good way of driving to the objective. I agree wholeheartedly that it's a good and important question to ask.

I think that a person is in the right class if:

1. The material is relevant to their educational needs
2. They are able to conduct themselves in a manner appropriate to the needs of the rest of the class

This thread started out on point 2, and is increasingly considering point 1.

I understand that people don't want to feel 'pissed on'. I'm very much aware that when it comes to events that cause the disease, that most people here have been through events far worse than any event I've experienced. However, to say that the "life issues" experienced by those with less severe events are less difficult leads me to feel pissed on. To me, the only rational course is not have a pissing contest at all.

If the objective of this place is to achieve therapeutic outcomes for people who have been traumatized (that is my understanding of the objective) then measuring one trauma against another seems pointless to me. When I see a rape victim talking in this place about self-harming thoughts, I don't give a damn about the rape, I care about the self-harm. Rape is a horrible bad thing, but it's in the past and there's nothing I can do about it. Self-harm, nightmares, dissociation, eating problems, violent impulses, compulsion to re-enact the trauma - these are evils that I have an opportunity to address.

If I was a cancer sufferer, and someone who had the symptoms of cancer (but didn't have cancer) wanted to join my self-help group, I'd be glad to have them on board. Because they might know a useful trick for managing nausea. Because they might have question about hair loss that sparks a useful discussion. They'd be worthless for treating my cancer, but that's what my doctor is for. Comparing their 'not cancer' to my 'cancer' is not the point.

It doesn't matter whether we went through the same shit. What matters to me is whether we are going through the same shit. Because the objective is to get out of the shit (or at least keep it out of our mouths).

 

[anonymous]

So is someone who comes on here, and when given advise they get angry, and attack others for their advise a troll?

And I am going to relate to a thread on here, because when someone comes on here new and then starts to threaten that they hope they kill themselves today in their self-harm because they have received advise on here that they don't like. I find that as really inflaming and I consider that to be trolling as it seemed they were just on here to express their viewpoint that nothing works except self-harm and anyone who suggests otherwise is attacking them or questions their opinion that they are PTSD and because of that they are suicidal. It seemed to me that they had been given advise by a mental health team at the hospital already and knew all about the stuff we were telling them so why did they come on here in the first place, but to cause trouble?

 

[BlueOrange]

So is someone who comes on here, and when given advise they get angry, and attack others for their advise a troll?

It may be trolling, or it may be sincere. It's definitely inappropriate. I think that identifying the reason for that kind of misbehaviour is far less important than stopping that kind of misbehaviour.

 

[Sandstone]

But can't it most effectively be stopped if you address the underlying reason?

 

[Tanishq]

@stenni I have seen staff trying to help them to understand their malice behavior, I guess staff have their limit,too. If a poster understands, staff lets them in. Otherwise banhammer strikes on them. Reasonable in my eyes.

Then again you know what trolls are made for? To annoy and continue the nonsense, they are practically unstoppable in that regard unless you put a limit to their access.

 

[Sighs]

@BlueOrange - I can see this topic has bothered you and I'm sorry that you have at any stage felt unwelcome here. Having said that I think your focus on whether we are going through the same shit currently is missing the point a little. Taking your analogy earlier of dealing with hair loss tips - some tips are going to be great for anyone with hair loss regardless of the cause - others are great if your hair loss is due to alopecia and just really really unhelpful to the point of harmful if you hair loss is due to chemotherapy. Where the shit came from is important.

Okay - I've said the same thing like 5 times now. Agree to disagree and respect your viewpoints, but I'm out of this one.

 

[StarChild]

But can't it most effectively be stopped if you address the underlying reason?

And how exactly would you try to achieve that "most effectively" part? What kind of strategies would you use? And how many times would you try them on such a specific person? And what would you personally do, when realizing nothing works with them? I'm very interested in your solutions / strategies. I'm not kidding! I really mean it.

 

[anthony]

when given advise they get angry, and attack others for their advise a troll?

Trolling is multi-faceted, and that is only one aspect. That by itself is also just piss poor self behaviour... though saying that, most people have moments like those.

Yes, there are regular users here who act that way quite often, and we also take action against them as deemed appropriate, though they aren't trolls, they're just pissed off / angry / rude, near 24/7. One could also say... that is PTSD for some people.

Trolls typically only post to get a negative response, they don't post anything else. They're often quite clever, most are intelligent people, but what they do is quite consistent and repetitive. There have been people who have been banned for trolling here, as their entire history here was posting new threads about controversial, highly inflamed topics. Nothing else. They didn't then manage / guide / participate, they just flamed peoples emotion, thus have been banned as appropriate.

Unfortunately, it does become difficult for staff to always get it right between what is PTSD and what is clear trolling behaviour. As staff outline often, new members typically have the most scrutiny, as that is where issues arise the most. If people settle in and then start questioning things, they will get a lot further than attacking / posting inflammatory material as a new member. Again though... we have banned established members who we deemed to be trolling, as they stepped through the initial period and then went to nothing other than trolling... thus banned.

 

[anthony]

I'm very interested in your solutions / strategies. I'm not kidding!

There are strategies... psychologically speaking. There are counters to it, but the problem is that such counters have to be employed at the community level, per person, which makes it near impossible to do here with freedom to respond to anything you have access.

At the staff level, we can put people into moderation, though that comes with its own set of negatives and basically, filters users ability to post and get responses as fast as possible. We only moderate guest content, for obvious reasons, where no account is accessible.

 

[Tanishq]

@anthony I would like to add one more thing to your post. Some trolls try to do search, try to mix up the trouble and present it with modified words. Even more annoying and difficult to deal with.

 

[joeylittle]

I think that a person is in the right class if:

1. The material is relevant to their educational needs
2. They are able to conduct themselves in a manner appropriate to the needs of the rest of the class

This thread started out on point 2, and is increasingly considering point 1.

I like how you broke this down, and I actually think we are also on point 2 quite a bit. It has to do with the concept of being able to conduct yourself in a manner appropriate to the needs of the rest of the class. If I chose to take a class called "advanced French language and culture" because I was intending on going to France soon, but had never taken French before in my life - although the material is relevant to my needs, I cannot conduct myself appropriately in regards to the needs of the class, because I cannot converse with them. I might be completely unobtrusive, and very polite, but I'm just not in the right room. I should be in French 1.

I'm not using that analogy to say that because we have PTSD we are 'advanced' in some way - really, just to say that we are specialists. Whether we are just learning about it or have many years under our belts - we have experience with the disorder. I think people with all sorts of mental health issues can learn things from this place, because (as it's been pointed out) PTSD symptomology crosses over many individual diagnoses.

But to then have someone with no experience in PTSD say that they learned how to conquer their anxiety by telling themselves to not be so nervous, or that they ate grapefruit for a month and went into full remission of all symptoms. That's really not appropriate to the needs of the rest of the class.

Even in those cases - more often than not:

• A good handful of people will quite kindly explain why grapefruit does not 'cure' PTSD.
• Another handful will make it clear that there is no 'cure'.
• They will be disagreed with by the 'I believe in a cure' folks.
• A few will just throw stones. Angry stones.
• Then others will yell at the stone throwers.
• Then some people will tell others to stop being so mean to the OP.

And then, OP will:

• Defend grapefruit for three more pages.
• Or say that they left off the fact that it was grapefruit in a full-time trauma treatment ward, plus round the clock therapy, and that they have been feeling better since they got out last week, and they expect that to be the end of it.
• Or they will tell us to f*ck off, we are bad people.
• Or they will learn something about why their statement is not 100% right for 100% of the sufferers 100% of the time, and they will accept that and possibly go on to become a contributing member of the community.

There's also usually someone who says that because of the grapefruit debacle, they have learned that this forum is not a safe place for sufferers, and they would like their account deleted.

I'm being a bit silly about it, but to tell the truth, that's what happens when someone who doesn't have experience with PTSD (sufferer or supporter or likely true sufferer) drops in and tells the forum what's up.

It's not like a newcomer even has to know anything at all, outside of their own experience - so long as their experience goes into the pile called PTSD, we will have something to talk about, disagree about, learn about, connect about, and care about. We can connect - which is the point of coming into the right classroom to seek out relevant material.