Hey Troll,
Yeah you know who you are, you know if you are one of them. You’re the type to go around to blogs and leave comments like:
“This is dumb”
“You’re an idiot”
“Another expert that has no clue about…”
If you don’t have the stones to comment, without hiding behind the wall of anonymity, you are a coward. People all over the web are working hard to be helpful, they’re trying to build a business, or they’re just trying to express themselves through their art. They’re putting themselves on the line, attaching their name to their thoughts, opinions and perspectives.
Dissent and Criticism
Virtually 0% of bloggers object with dissenting opinions, provided that those opinions are stated in a “grown up voice” backed with thoughtful criticism. What virtually 100% of us don’t like, are the angry basement dwellers that have never created a thing in their lives and therefore feel the need to degrade the work of others. Does every troll live in their parents’ basement, unemployed, fat and alone? No, probably not, but without anything but some random name like ChiaPet11 or BobaFett9989 all I have to draw on is my imagination.
So here’s my promise to the lowly troll:
If you find your way to my site and troll my post, armed only with anonymity and negative, thoughtless comments devoid of critical thought, I will destroy you with facts, case studies and passion. You are welcome to sign in and build the conversation. You are welcome to disagree with me, in fact, I encourage it, but explain why you disagree. I’m not giving a lecture on my blog, I’m learning too which is why the comments are enabled. If you cannot abide by that and instead choose to troll my posts I will kindly tear you down.
Will it ever stop?
The trolls will likely exist forever. The internet has enabled anonymity, it is both a gift and a curse. Much like spam the best we can do is hope that it gets better with time.