Family Forum / Parenting / Mothers / August 2003

Just thought you'd all like to know how we usually deal with those fly by
posters who try to create problems within the news groups [aka tr0llls].  We
regard this good practice for dealing with two year olds and do the ignore
them thing.  Sometimes we get particularly intrigued with a passerby and
either have a good conversation about what they posted on without resorting
to flames, or change the subject entirely and have a grand time talking
without flames, or we <<<<<<<<<hug>>>>>>>>>the tr0llllll.   There are also
methods of avoiding attracting the attention of those who have set up bots
to search news groups for discussions near and dear to their heart in which
they like to get people all worked up.  We disguise words with misspellings,
using symbols to replace certain letters [ie:  c*rc] so we can still talk
about it without having unwanted help.  We also disguise subjects with odd
subject lines that do not attract unwanted attention and we *deffinitely*
snip xposting in hot topic areas so we can talk about it only with the
people here.

Just thought that information might be of use to someone.  And, it is not
bad practice on all newsfr0ups.

-Aula