Soldiergirl and other haters keep returning, what can we do?

[Scepcop]

It appears that soldiergirl and the other haters (if they are indeed different people) keep returning and reregistering. Me and the moderator have banned their user names, IP's and email addresses, making it a lot of work to get back here, yet they keep getting back anyway, under different IP's and user names and emails. They must have taken a lot of time to create new email addresses for each return here. I'm amazed at their tenacity.

What can we do about this? They are filling this board with garbage and lies in a smear campaign of character attacks.

Setting the registration to have me approve all new members is not very feasible cause I don't have the time to review every new registrant and even if I did, there's no way I can tell if they are the haters/slanderers in disguise. So in effect, I'd have to stop all new people from registering to stop them.

Any other solutions or ideas?

[ciscop]

so closing down the registration will do winston
althought ill be a shame not to get new people with new stories to tell

[sunset]

I have an idea where they are from but dont want to say on here. Cant be bothered with a slanging match with any of them !

[Scepcop]

[Scepcop]

[ProfWag]

Unfortunately, I don't think there is much that can be done. I believe you have rules around here somewhere that personal attacks, etc. may be cause for suspension and further actions. I'm afraid that's all you can do. Keep an eye out for that sort of thing and take appropriate action. I think that's about all you can do.

[ProfessorX]

Although I'm new to this forum, I've been on many forums over the past decade and had to deal with trolls of varying sorts. This may sound obvious, but I think the best way to deal with them is to just ignore them and don't respond at all to their taunting. Just quietly delete their posts and act as if they don't exist.

Trolls thrive on attention and on the sadistic pleasure of getting under the skin of the people they are attacking. That pleasure is dependent on seeing their intended target express pain, displeasure, and offense at the attacks. If, however, the troll attacks fail to elicit the desired emotional responses, then, trolling no longer is pleasurable and the troll will eventually stop trolling on his/her own.

The trick to doing this, however, is patience and discipline, and making sure the board members are on the same page. Because initially, when you give the troll the calm, silent treatment, the troll may act out even more egregiously to get some attention. It's only if her actions continue to fail to produce the emotional responses she desires that she will eventually lose interest in trolling.

Note - I distinguish between trollers and spammers - spammers just want to wreak arbitrary havoc, while trollers typically have a personal agenda behind their trolling. The silent treatment method I think works for trollers but not for spammers.

[NinjaPuppy]

Thank you ProfX, that was very well put.

You hear that ciscop????? Don't poke the crazy!

[Eteponge]

Yeah, it has gotten to be very annoying for me and Winston to keep these people out, banning over and over and deleting and locking topics left and right. They don't contribute anything to the forum except a bunch of heavily biased personal attacks and ad-hominems spammed in various posts and topics, which have *absolutely nothing* to do with disproving the Paranormal Topics discussed here. You can't disprove Paranormal Subjects by spamming a bunch of personal attacks at someone.

It's ridiculous.

[ciscop]

[Scepcop]

ProfessorX,
You are probably right and that is so true. Trollers are like bullies. They want to get a reaction out of you. But if you ignore them, they get bored and don't get the attention and stimulation they're trying to get, so they eventually stop.

But how are they creating so many IP's? Can they create an unlimited number of them?

[Scepcop]

[Scepcop]

BTW, as they say in the military:

"If you're taking a lot of flak, you must be flying over the target"

[ciscop]

[NinjaPuppy]