“Troll” is an internet term for someone who likes to derail conversation, often in the form of insults or other easy baits.

I’ve had several trolls over the four years I’ve been running this site, and here are a few things I have learned:

1. Trolls are often very off-base
Considering most of what trolls do is INSULT, most of them do a pretty bad job. I had a batch of comment trolling that was obsessed with the fact that my boyfriend was gay (I wish!), and another accused me of being a “wannabe journalist” (er, I’m a copywriter and journalism is far too objective for my tastes).

2. Don’t ever talk to trolls
Seriously: trolls are looking for a response. It’s not fun to bait people if they don’t take the bait. I once had a troll get so desperate for some sort of response that they started saying “Come on, big mouth! Don’t you have anything to say? Don’t you want to defend yourself?” Uh, not really. What’s the point? Trolls are like mosquito bites: the more you scratch, the worse they get. A troll who can’t get a rise out of you gets bored awfully quickly.

3. Htaccess files are your friends!
Once, during a particularly bad troll attack, I created an htaccess file that diverted my trolls to a page saying I’d stopped blogging. This gave them the sense of “winning” (”Dude, we fucking made her take her site down! ROCK!”), and let me quietly keep on doing my thing.

4. Most trolls are really young
If not in body, then in spirit. Bullying isn’t exactly a mature activity, online or off. It’s really not worth engaging these folks in a dialog. They’re not actually interested in whatever defenses or answers you might have — they’re interested in the thrill of getting a rise out of you.