User blog comment:Sannse/Don't Feed the Trolls/@comment-5520498-20120917160815/@comment-452-20120917225448

This same argument has come up recently in Australian politics.


 * That definition is not true anymore. At least not most of the time now a days.

Over the past year as a local wiki admin, I've seen hundreds of instances of random anons inserting a random rude word into an article, and not a single instance of someone doing something akin to one of your examples.

While "Political trolling" does indeed exist, that doesn't mean there aren't still plenty of old-fashioned in-it-for-the-lulz trolls - which is what this blog post is talking about.

Nothing in this blog post instructs anyone to chastise people who respond to the trolls. The actions of your hypothetical "community of people who yell at victims" do not negate the advice in this blog post, and in fact are contrary to it, as their actions are "feeding the trolls".

Overall, "Don't Feed The Trolls" means "Defuse the situation".


 * How to deal with people who bully victims.

Bullying is bullying and should be dealt with equally. On the wiki where I am an admin, anyone harassing a troll gets the same treatment as the troll. (Specifically, some users have responded by editing the Troll's user page with insults. This is against the Wikia TOU, no matter what the recipient has done.) If anyone were ever to harass a user for responding to a troll, they would also get the same treatment as the troll.