Hellbanning - brilliant way to deal with trolls & abusive posters?

[exexpat]

I saw this article yesterday which gives some novel ways to deal with trolls .

I particularly like the idea of 'hellbanning' - trolls aren't blocked from the site, but their posts are made invisible to everyone but themselves. So there they are, starting threads, posting inflammatory replies etc and gradually starting to wonder why everyone is ignoring them. Eventually even the thickest, most persistent troll would give up. A very effective way of enforcing 'don't feed the troll'.

Worth a try, MNHQ?

[tribpot]

I love that. You could even pretend someone was hellbanned when they weren't, just to mess with them.

I think this might represent a level of evildoing that MNHQ were unhappy with, though.

[beenalongtimecoming]

That is absolute genius! I love the idea of hellbanning!

[Pinot]

But they'll just change their ip address, register again and start her process again.

It's no different to banning them and will more than likely rile them and give them something to get their teeth into.

[Pinot]

The not her

[Foggles]

I am worrying that I may have been slowbanned as it takes ages for MN pages to load.

[exexpat]

Pinot, the whole point is that they wouldn't know they'd been hellbanned as no one would tell them. Of course they could reregister etc if they realised, but they might just give up on MN as a boring place where no one rises to the bait. For all we know, MNHQ could be doing it already.

[Pinot]

But they'd only need about five minutes to realise it.

[Screaminabdabs]

Fantastic.

[HelenMumsnet]

@exexpat

Pinot, the whole point is that they wouldn't know they'd been hellbanned as no one would tell them. Of course they could reregister etc if they realised, but they might just give up on MN as a boring place where no one rises to the bait. For all we know, MNHQ could be doing it already.

Indeed. We could be. Or we could be about to be. Or we could have read this and thought what a good idea.

In every case, probably the least said on this subject the better, eh?

[ivykaty44]

testing..?

[LesBOFerables]

[HecateWhoopass]

But the trolls would know about this and so when they didnet get a reaction, would it not be the first thing that crossed their mind? Leading to them just reregistering with a different email address?

[Screaminabdabs]

Afaik it's not that easy to mess about with different ISPs, different laptops etc. Why would they bother if the website doesn't give them the reaction they want? They'd go elsewhere, wouldn't they? And that's what we want - isn't it???

[HecateWhoopass]

God knows. I thought it was fairly simple.

I don't know that a lot of them wouldn't view it as a challenge, tbh.

[Pinot]

If its so complicated, why do so many fucking irritating trolls and banned posts sleep coming back?

[LesBOFerables]

Is that the same as crystal meth, BeerTricks?

[Screaminabdabs]

Do they?

[Pinot]

Like a fart in a steamy bathroom, Screamin. They just won't go away.

[amillionyears]

Like the link.
exexpat, I have often wondered if you are expatinscotland?
I have thought yes, then no, then yes, then no.
Pleease tell me!

[Pinot]

Not expatinscotland afaik

[amillionyears]

I will try and remember! thanks.

[IamtheZombie]

Zombie whispers: hide poster

Only joking!!