How to Manage Trolls and Negativity in Online Community

In Internet slang, a troll is an individual who deliberately posts provocative, off-topic or offensive messages to upset users. Their goal is to derail discussions and upset other members.

An unfortunate reality of online communities is that they’ll attract trolls and negative people. If you engage with them on their terms, it makes the situation worse. If left unattended, negative behavior can poison your community’s environment and make even the most engaged members quit.

It’s therefore important to learn troll management and community moderation strategies to handle negativity. In this guide we’ll dive deeper into the topic and find out best ways to handle trolls and control the spread of negativity. You’ll learn how to build trust and safety to prevent damage to your community’s reputation.

How to Identify Trolls

It’s important to spot the difference between trolls and frustrated members. In general, trolls aim to provoke. Their comments are often off-topic, repetitive and designed to cause conflict.

They’ll use sarcasm, insults, personal attacks or sweeping generalizations (Example: “This place is a joke”). If they are challenged, they’ll escalate and stay combative. They’ll show little interest in community norms and constructive outcomes.

However, sometimes even the most engaged members can express frustration. They’ll express concerns. Their tone might be angry or emotional. However, there will always be an unaddressed issue behind it. It could be a bug, a misunderstanding or unmet expectations.

Unlike trolls, they’ll respond to moderators or fellow members when treated with respect. They’ll calm down, clarify their issue and even apologize after they are heard.

The key difference between trolls and frustrated members is intent. As a community manager, you need to be good at identifying the underlying intent.

Establish Clear Community Guidelines and Policies

Every strong community has a clearly written code of conduct, rules and guidelines. These guidelines set the tone for member behavior and define what’s acceptable. These guidelines will also be upfront about the consequences of not following them.

Crafting Effective Community Guidelines

1. Be Specific and Inclusive: Always be specific about the expectations. Simply saying “be nice” is not helpful. You may want to clarify that personal attacks, hate speech, harassment and spam are not allowed. A concise cod of conduct gives every member a clear reference to these values.

2. Require Accountability: Trolls often hide behind throwaway accounts or anonymous usernames. To discourage this, consider banning sign-up with throwaway emails and domains. Simple spam control measures like reCAPTCHA, email or phone number verification can take care of 90% of spam and trolls.

3. Consistent Enforcement: Simply writing the community rulebook won’t cut it. You’ll need to enforce members into reading and accepting the code of conduct. The best way is to pin the policy in the sidebar or force users to accept it when they sign-up.

Build a Positive Community Culture

We have observed that a community that maintains a positive culture usually doesn’t get trolls. The goal is to create a psychologically safe environment where positive engagement is rewarded and developed a sense of belonging.

Following are tips to create a positive and supporting community culture:

• Encourage Positive Interactions: Aim to make positivity louder than negativity. Highlight success stories and good contributions from members. If someone shares a very helpful answer or response - make sure that other members notice it.

• Empower “Troll Hunters” : A simple addition like “Report post” empowers your good members report trolls. Over a period of time, you’ll be a cadre of community defenders who’ll often intervene before mods take control. They’ll also help defuse the situation faster.

• Promote Trust: If your platform allows for it - reward positive contribution with “karma points”, “reputation points” or “badges”. You can even have “trust levels” assigned to members.

• Empower Moderation Team: It’s essential that the moderator team can act independently and is empowered to take actions. If mods have to report to community owners for every decision, they’ll hesitate to act fast. Understand that dealing with negativity and personal attacks is mentally draining. Read - Preventing member burnout in community.

Strategies to Handle Trolls

The best strategy to handle trolls is “Do Not Feed the Trolls”. Trolls post to invoke reaction. They are attention seekers. Let’s see how to handle them.

1. Ignore / Silence : Very effective. Simply ignoring or responding with ‘silence’ is often the best way to deal with the trolls.

2. Delete: Delete their posts visibly and leave a mod note. Include a link to your code of conduct.

3. Stay calm and professional: If you must respond, maintain calm and be professional. A calm and rational response can deflate the intentions of the troll. A heated response fuels them. Maintain high standards.

4. Kill with Kindness: When appropriate, kill the trolls with kindness. For example, you might simply “thank” a troll for their feedback. You can also use humor - but make sure to not use sarcasm. It sends a clear message to trolls that their behavior is not welcome in the community.

5. Identify underlying issue: It always helps to identify if there’s any underlying issue behind the provocative posts. If someone is venting out but open to dialogue, you must give them a chance.

Leveraging AI for Troll Management

AI allows community managers be 10x more effective. AI can help you identify negativity, spam and trolling at scale.

1. AI powered content moderation: AI systems can monitor every post, reply and comment posted on your community and immediately classify it as ‘safe’ or ‘needs attention’. The AI systems are good at judging the user intent and notifying the moderators if their intervention is necessary.

2. Pattern recognition: AI moderation tools can identify patterns in a member’s posts. If they are repeatedly negative, use abusive language or troll others - AI can flag them for manual review.

3. Sentiment Analysis: AI can give you a macro-level insight into the overall community sentiment. It can alert you to growing issues and suggest preventative actions.

Concluding Thoughts

Managing tolls and negativity in an online community is challenging. However, it’s absolutely achievable with a comprehensive approach. The best start is to setup and enforce community guidelines and building a positive community culture.

A community manager will have to stay patient, professional and consistent to maintain a positive environment in the community. Modern AI tools can help them do their job more efficiently.