Posted by crushedout on May 25, 2005, at 15:42:58
In reply to Re: Dealing with trolls, posted by Minnie-Haha on May 25, 2005, at 15:06:45
Actually, that principle only applies when you're trying to extinguish a behavior. So if a troll's undesirable behavior is intermittently and unpredictably reinforced, then when you remove the reinforcement *altogether*, the troll will continue the behavior longer than if you had reinforced it constantly. But since I assume the level of reinforcement will remain the same (i.e., some people will respond and some won't), it's better that more people ignore the troll.In other words, less reinforcement is always better. I wish I could convince everyone to ignore trolls, but I know I can't. (And my guess is that most of us agree on who is a "troll" here, but it's clear not all of us will.)
One last note: in my experience, trolls usually end up getting themselves blocked, making all of this moot.
poster:crushedout
thread:502728
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/admin/20050517/msgs/502802.html