Originally Posted by nbevan
Before we close this thread, lets not lose sight of the original issue, which was how to respond to troll threads.
While this proposal has proved to be controversial, I do think we do need a better way of handling prankster troll threads. There seem to be a number of issues:
1. Some troll posts stimulate interesting discussions, but ...
2. The lengthier the discussion the troll generates, the greater the incentive for repeat appearances of similar trolls.
3. FTers want to be helpful to OPs, but resent being fooled.
Troll threads could be discouraged by:
a) Refraining from responding. We could invent another acronym for the purpose, or merely state something like:
THE ORIGINAL POST DOES NOT MERIT FURTHER DISCUSSION
b) Requesting moderators to close the thread.
c) Requesting moderators to delete the thread.
Closing or deleting could provide a greater disincentive to trolls, but it is not clear to me what the criteria would be for requesting a thread to be closed or deleted?
Its technically against the TOS to have a discussion about moderation. Since this is not really a debate about what the mods are or aren't doing here but rather a "can they do this", I thought it might be helpful to have a general FT mod perspective.
I can't speak for the AA mods, but I can tell you in general, simply having a request from a poster to "close a thread" isn't grounds for closing one - and mods have their own policy they have to follow that is set FT wide giving guidelines for when moderator intervention is appropriate. Threads that are off-topic for the forum where they are listed are generally moved to the appropriate forum (see yesterday's Bathroom thread) and threads that delve into extreme personal attacks often get closed if the discussion absolutely can't get back on topic after warnings. Usually the only reason to delete a thread is if it is truly spam or the original poster was grossly offensive. (Otherwise most mods will edit out offensive individual posts and leave the appropriate content.)
Each forum does have its own flavor within the style of that forum. I know on Starwood, lots of mods will marry matching threads together - or you will see lots of guidance to do a search (with links) to recent similar threads about that topic.
The bottom line for everyone to remember is that the moderation staff (actually called TalkTeam) isn't here to be a "police" force. Rather our primary function is to welcome new members to the community and to help try to make the posting experience as easy and friendly to the overall community as possible.
We are tasked with trying to keep threads on topic, make sure that the responses from other community posters are civil, and with helping make sure that each poster who comes to a FT forum to look for information is given the best chance at getting his or her individual question answered while still streamlining information so that a poster searching old archives has the best chance of finding relevant information without having to read dozens of threads. This can include merging similar relevant threads, jumping in to answer repetitive questions when the rest of the community responds with "do a search" to a new poster, or even giving guidance via PM to constructively help a poster with their style if they are having difficulty communicating well with the rest of the community.
I personally think the best advice was given earlier in this thread where someone suggested (and I'm paraphrasing here) that the best response on threads that provoke you is no response at all. Just take a deep breath and skip it. And with folks who come back and repeatedly crave attention, the same response is appropriate - do not respond to their narcissistic need for response volume. Eventually they will get bored and go away.