Swatting Trolls v. Encouraging Saints—Who Wins When Threads Go Sideways?

[bob121]

We’ve all seen it: you ask for testimonies of grace and within five posts someone’s waving Psalm 137:9 or Hitler to prove a point.
The food-fight starts, the original question sinks, and the encouragers log off.

• Do we engage the detour in hopes of gospel witness, or gracefully bow out and let the algorithm bury the mess?
• Any practical filters you use before hitting “reply”?

Share one sentence rule you follow when the trolls arrive.
Grace,
bob121 – Tokyo

 

[linux.poet]

To answer the title question, moderators. Moderators always win.

Share one sentence rule you follow when the trolls arrive.

Debate or Report.

If reported, do not debate, and if debated, do not report. If reported, then letting any algorithms bury things is good until the mods show up. As far as I know, forums don’t use algorithms, but letting the thread roll along instead of responding is the wise course. You don’t want your posts to get caught in a moderation evaluation.

If the post breaks the rules of the forum or website, report, if it does not, debate. If the troll is making things off-topic, that’s usually against the rules of forum websites and merits a report instead of debate.

 

[Tinker Grey]

Yanno, there is a sub-forum for this kind of stuff -- the Kitchen Sink.

 

[partinobodycular]

We’ve all seen it: you ask for testimonies of grace and within five posts someone’s waving Psalm 137:9 or Hitler to prove a point.
The food-fight starts, the original question sinks, and the encouragers log off.

Just an FYI, in my opinion, asking for testimonials on a sub-forum open to non-Christians seems like a deliberate affront to the non-Christians present. If you want to share testimonials perhaps it would be better suited to a Christians only forum.

 

[Servus]

We’ve all seen it: you ask for testimonies of grace and within five posts someone’s waving Psalm 137:9 or Hitler to prove a point.
The food-fight starts, the original question sinks, and the encouragers log off.

• Do we engage the detour in hopes of gospel witness, or gracefully bow out and let the algorithm bury the mess?
• Any practical filters you use before hitting “reply”?

Share one sentence rule you follow when the trolls arrive.
Grace,
bob121 – Tokyo

You should probably post the kinds of threads you start in the Christians Only section. When you post here in the open to all area, you're probably going to get people who are antagonistic towards Christianity. When I post in the open to all section it's because I want the input of non-christians, anti-christians and so on. People usually post here to pit Christian ethics and morality against secular ethics and morality.

 

[bob121]

Thanks, Servus & Tinker—good call on Kitchen Sink next time.
Still finding my way around here—so many boards it feels like a maze!
I’ll happily take the input, bow out if it drifts, and let the thread sink.

Just an FYI, in my opinion, asking for testimonials on a sub-forum open to non-Christians seems like a deliberate affront to the non-Christians present. If you want to share testimonials perhaps it would be better suited to a Christians only forum.

Thanks, partinobodycular—point taken. I honestly wasn’t trying to affront anyone; I’m new to the board-map and simply picked the first open space. If a mod wants to slide this over to a Christians-only section, I’m fine with that.

 

[bob121]

You should probably post the kinds of threads you start in the Christians Only section. When you post here in the open to all area, you're probably going to get people who are antagonistic towards Christianity. When I post in the open to all section it's because I want the input of non-christians, anti-christians and so on. People usually post here to pit Christian ethics and morality against secular ethics and morality.

Thanks, Servus—honestly I’m still learning the lay-out here.
I’ll take the cue: next time I’ll drop testimonial-style threads in Christians-Only so the encouragers aren’t forced to wade through the inevitable mud.
Appreciate the steer.

 

[bob121]

Yanno, there is a sub-forum for this kind of stuff -- the Kitchen Sink.

Thanks, Tinker Grey—Kitchen Sink it is next time.
Still finding my way around the maze of boards; I’ll park meta / housekeeping stuff there from now on.

 

[bob121]

To answer the title question, moderators. Moderators always win.


Debate or Report.

If reported, do not debate, and if debated, do not report. If reported, then letting any algorithms bury things is good until the mods show up. As far as I know, forums don’t use algorithms, but letting the thread roll along instead of responding is the wise course. You don’t want your posts to get caught in a moderation evaluation.

If the post breaks the rules of the forum or website, report, if it does not, debate. If the troll is making things off-topic, that’s usually against the rules of forum websites and merits a report instead of debate.

Thanks, linux.poet—solid, practical rule. I’ll copy it into my pocket:
Debate or report—never both, never neither.
Appreciate the mod-work you all do to keep the place sane.

 

[linux.poet]

Thanks, Servus—honestly I’m still learning the lay-out here.
I’ll take the cue: next time I’ll drop testimonial-style threads in Christians-Only so the encouragers aren’t forced to wade through the inevitable mud.

Yes, there’s a reason why we have the Christians’ Only subforums.

But the content you placed in the OP as what trolls would do

you ask for testimonies of grace and within five posts someone’s waving Psalm 137:9 or Hitler to prove a point.

seemed like it would be more commonplace on Facebook or Twitter than here. Psalm 137:9 and Hitler would be off-topic, since you asked for testimonies of grace, and people who post off-topic posts like that repeatedly just get banned. (Calling political leaders Hitler is explicitly banned in the political sections too.)

By the way, a testimonies of grace thread would belong in the Deeper Fellowship area here, in case you were wondering about that.

In broader social media, debate or report does still apply, but after awhile you have to ask yourself whether it’s worth your time to do the debate. The problem with doing nothing is that the slanderers will drown you out if you don’t post at least one counter argument, they will come to define your message for you. You cannot let yourself be defined by your harshest critics. Still, dealing with abusers/slanderers is exhausting work, even when you have the positional and spiritual authority to manage them. I would never oblige someone to debate themselves into exhaustion over some triviality.

The way I manage my energy is just to stay off social media (aside from YouTube) and put my time into forums where I either rely on other moderators or I have mod tools to deal with rule violators myself and I don’t end up having to fight reputation battles all the time. Authority actually saves a lot of energy in comparison to expensive emotional reactions of fear and anger. But that may not be for everyone.

Instead, I would advise to pick your platforms and your battles, and learn their best practices one at a time. You do Facebook? Learn the best practices there. Twitter? Same. YouTube? Ok. TikTok? Whatever. Forum like this one? Not too hard.

 

[Servus]

I'm here to troll the trolls. It's my calling. Not really.

 

[bob121]

Yes, there’s a reason why we have the Christians’ Only subforums.

But the content you placed in the OP as what trolls would do

seemed like it would be more commonplace on Facebook or Twitter than here. Psalm 137:9 and Hitler would be off-topic, since you asked for testimonies of grace, and people who post off-topic posts like that repeatedly just get banned. (Calling political leaders Hitler is explicitly banned in the political sections too.)

By the way, a testimonies of grace thread would belong in the Deeper Fellowship area here, in case you were wondering about that.

In broader social media, debate or report does still apply, but after awhile you have to ask yourself whether it’s worth your time to do the debate. The problem with doing nothing is that the slanderers will drown you out if you don’t post at least one counter argument, they will come to define your message for you. You cannot let yourself be defined by your harshest critics. Still, dealing with abusers/slanderers is exhausting work, even when you have the positional and spiritual authority to manage them. I would never oblige someone to debate themselves into exhaustion over some triviality.

The way I manage my energy is just to stay off social media (aside from YouTube) and put my time into forums where I either rely on other moderators or I have mod tools to deal with rule violators myself and I don’t end up having to fight reputation battles all the time. Authority actually saves a lot of energy in comparison to expensive emotional reactions of fear and anger. But that may not be for everyone.

Instead, I would advise to pick your platforms and your battles, and learn their best practices one at a time. You do Facebook? Learn the best practices there. Twitter? Same. YouTube? Ok. TikTok? Whatever. Forum like this one? Not too hard.

Linux.poet, thank you for taking the time to lay out the terrain so clearly. I’m a Kiwi living in Tokyo, blind in one eye and losing the other, so English-speaking Christian fellowship is scarce. My only real goal here is to find brothers and sisters I can go deep with, swap stories of grace, and encourage without having to swat trolls all day. Your map—Christians-Only for testimonies, one calm counter-post, then report and move on—gives me a path that saves energy and keeps the gospel front-and-center. I’ll park future grace-threads in Deeper Fellowship and learn this one platform well. Grace to you, and thanks again for the mod-work you do. May the Lord of grace continue to bless you with strength and peace. Have a wonderful day/night. Jason in Japan for Jesus.

 

[Hvizsgyak]

People usually post here to pit Christian ethics and morality against secular ethics and morality.

Which shouldn't be a problem, right? I feel we should debate secular society with our Christian ethics and morality. It might not influence the secular person who posted the trolling topic but it gives the third parties reading the posts something to think about. Possibly they may find that Christians and Christianity's ethics and morality (which come from God) have alot to offer the world. I follow alot of your posts and I feel God is influencing me through some of those posts. I appreciate that alot (don't mind the word "alot" being misspelled, it's one of those Mandela effects - I swear it was spelled that way in another parallel universe ).

 

[stevevw]

We’ve all seen it: you ask for testimonies of grace and within five posts someone’s waving Psalm 137:9 or Hitler to prove a point.
The food-fight starts, the original question sinks, and the encouragers log off.

• Do we engage the detour in hopes of gospel witness, or gracefully bow out and let the algorithm bury the mess?
• Any practical filters you use before hitting “reply”?

Share one sentence rule you follow when the trolls arrive.
Grace,
bob121 – Tokyo

I think it depends what the issue is. I assume you are talking about social and ethical issues mostly. Though just about everything can have a social and moral component.

I think the first thing is to recognise the overall culture in which this is happening. It is a different world to the one 50 or 75 years ago. Overall we are a postmodern society. That means the fundemental belief is all things are relative or at least there is an increased inclination to question everything. Oppose stuff for the sake of doing so because its what we do.

So already its a mindfield of decades of post Enlightened rationalisations and people are very good at posing alternatives and articulating arguements. Rightly so as within some contextes they are sound and rational and needed.

Taking this into consideration the first thing to note is that playing the same game by the same rules is not going to work. You more or less become another voice in a pot of voices all proclaiming a subjective truth. So you have to know when its a subjective matter or a factual matter or a bit of both and when to adapt or cease to engage.

I think apologetics is important. But basically I think its a spiritual battle. Most will not even believe such a thing so you cannot get into a rational debate. But we can say that what is being objected to or claimed within the social and moral or political realm is subjective. It is a belief no different to religious belief.

I mean for Christians there are certain core truths and we should be united in mind and spirit. So no need to arguements or decending into politics. Otherwise its not good fruit. Some arguements on the bible are not worth it if they cause division. Just leave it that people believe different and let God show the way.

But in the end all you can do is profess your belief, give testimony of the gospel and leave it at that. People underestimate testimony and we don't have to apologise for it. We use testimonial experience all the time and people believe people.

In saying that I think its by living the gospel or the teachings that will show others that this is not just about words or rationalisations. But a experiential belief that becomes reality. It has a real effect and presense in the world. Thats the evidence and its tangible in that sense. No one can argue about someone who is living the words without fault.

Often it is not what someone said but how they said it or what they actually did that later won the person over. We know that despite all the apologetics that it may be something completely unrelated that caused a person to hear Gods voice.

You can lead a horse to water but you cannot make it drink. But you can show them the life giving water and leave it up to God.

 

[Robban]

I think it depends what the issue is. I assume you are talking about social and ethical issues mostly. Though just about everything can have a social and moral component.

I think the first thing is to recognise the overall culture in which this is happening. It is a different world to the one 50 or 75 years ago. Overall we are a postmodern society. That means the fundemental belief is all things are relative or at least there is an increased inclination to question everything. Oppose stuff for the sake of doing so because its what we do.

So already its a mindfield of decades of post Enlightened rationalisations and people are very good at posing alternatives and articulating arguements. Rightly so as within some contextes they are sound and rational and needed.

Taking this into consideration the first thing to note is that playing the same game by the same rules is not going to work. You more or less become another voice in a pot of voices all proclaiming a subjective truth. So you have to know when its a subjective matter or a factual matter or a bit of both and when to adapt or cease to engage.

I think apologetics is important. But basically I think its a spiritual battle. Most will not even believe such a thing so you cannot get into a rational debate. But we can say that what is being objected to or claimed within the social and moral or political realm is subjective. It is a belief no different to religious belief.

I mean for Christians there are certain core truths and we should be united in mind and spirit. So no need to arguements or decending into politics. Otherwise its not good fruit. Some arguements on the bible are not worth it if they cause division. Just leave it that people believe different and let God show the way.

But in the end all you can do is profess your belief, give testimony of the gospel and leave it at that. People underestimate testimony and we don't have to apologise for it. We use testimonial experience all the time and people believe people.

In saying that I think its by living the gospel or the teachings that will show others that this is not just about words or rationalisations. But a experiential belief that becomes reality. It has a real effect and presense in the world. Thats the evidence and its tangible in that sense. No one can argue about someone who is living the words without fault.

Often it is not what someone said but how they said it or what they actually did that later won the person over. We know that despite all the apologetics that it may be something completely unrelated that caused a person to hear Gods voice.

You can lead a horse to water but you cannot make it drink. But you can show them the life giving water and leave it up to God.

It is indeed a different world compared to 50-75 years ago, at least socially and culturewise.

Gone are the days when the run of things (Sweden) where pretty simple compared to today.

Plenty of work, work Mon-Fri, wages in cash on Friday, sitting around the kitchen table with a bottle of vodka,

and solving all the problems of the world. That done, you were good to go for another week.

That what has not changed is talk of religion and politics in work places and even socially are a no-no.

Today however, the scene has changed, forums and different means of, sometimes letting off steam.

Of course this just a general look in the rearview mirror,

 

[stevevw]

It is indeed a different world compared to 50-75 years ago, at least socially and culturewise.

Gone are the days when the run of things (Sweden) where pretty simple compared to today.

Plenty of work, work Mon-Fri, wages in cash on Friday, sitting around the kitchen table with a bottle of vodka,

and solving all the problems of the world. That done, you were good to go for another week.

That what has not changed is talk of religion and politics in work places and even socially are a no-no.

Today however, the scene has changed, forums and different means of, sometimes letting off steam.

Of course this just a general look in the rearview mirror,

Actually you got me thinking in how you said we use to seperate politics and religion from work. That was a no no becuase work was work. Keep your mind on the job and the work team are united to get the job done.

Then as you say social media came along and now everything in online and people can search and find bad stuff from years ago and shame others or get them fired if they don't like them and what they stand for.

Not because they did something wrong. But because some words or an image from years ago which was ok to do then. Is dragged back up and given new lease of life with a new spin and narrative around it to then use as a weapon against someone they don't like.

Media and social media has become a very powerful tool and because its so subjective and performative it can fool people. In some ways reality has become performative. What we see, how its narrated and framed and the meanings created that are powerful enough to change reality. To change laws, cancel and destroy people.

But thankfully and hopefully people are beginning to wake up. This whole media world has been going for some time now. So we have enough references to call on to now expose the unrealities and fake news. We are starting to see this as well and this is exposing the lies and in fact it is those who had the agendas and pushed the falsehoods who are now the ones being shamed and losing jobs ect.

 

[Robban]

Actually you got me thinking in how you said we use to seperate politics and religion from work. That was a no no becuase work was work. Keep your mind on the job and the work team are united to get the job done.

Then as you say social media came along and now everything in online and people can search and find bad stuff from years ago and shame others or get them fired if they don't like them and what they stand for.

Not because they did something wrong. But because some words or an image from years ago which was ok to do then. Is dragged back up and given new lease of life with a new spin and narrative around it to then use as a weapon against someone they don't like.

Media and social media has become a very powerful tool and because its so subjective and performative it can fool people. In some ways reality has become performative. What we see, how its narrated and framed and the meanings created that are powerful enough to change reality. To change laws, cancel and destroy people.

But thankfully and hopefully people are beginning to wake up. This whole media world has been going for some time now. So we have enough references to call on to now expose the unrealities and fake news. We are starting to see this as well and this is exposing the lies and in fact it is those who had the agendas and pushed the falsehoods who are now the ones being shamed and losing jobs ect.

 

[Robban]

Post #17 not valid but a result of my clumsy fingers. and tired eyes.

 

[Oompa Loompa]

We’ve all seen it: you ask for testimonies of grace and within five posts someone’s waving Psalm 137:9 or Hitler to prove a point.
The food-fight starts, the original question sinks, and the encouragers log off.

• Do we engage the detour in hopes of gospel witness, or gracefully bow out and let the algorithm bury the mess?
• Any practical filters you use before hitting “reply”?

Share one sentence rule you follow when the trolls arrive.
Grace,
bob121 – Tokyo

The ignore button is your best friend.