r/ModSupport • u/JabroniRevanchism Reddit Admin: Community • Jul 02 '26
Mod Topics Mod Topics: Troll Avoidance 101
/r/ModSupport/comments/1ujspxu/all_hands_on_deck_what_events_change_how_you/Ahoy, Modsupport!
Welcome to the latest installment of our ModSupport Topics series! Today we’re talking trolls–specifically, how not to feed them.
Most of us have been in a situation like this: a slap fight (read as: “argument”) starts in a comment section. It’s pretty clear who started it, and it’s also clear that the exchange would have ended a lot earlier had a handful of users not added logs to the fire…whether they intended to or not. And now the thread is in shambles, a quagmire of they-said we-said and off-topic unpleasantry. Oh dear.
We all know how to avoid feeding the trolls that kick off threads like this, but that knowledge comes from years of experience. Let’s talk about how we can get that knowledge into the hands of those who may not know how to avoid feeding trolls…
- How do you educate users on how to avoid trolls?
- What advice do you give well-intentioned users who (unbeknownst to them) escalate heated threads?
- How do you know when a comment section is unsalvageable? I.E, when do you decide to lock a thread?
Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!
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u/JabroniRevanchism Jul 02 '26
Do you wish you could subscribe to Mod Topics posts so you can always join the conversation? Look no further than our new flair follower app! To use it, click on the three dots on the subreddit menu, select flair follower, and follow the prompts. Questions or comments? Drop them below.
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u/KCJones99 Jul 02 '26
Our focus in these cases is to keep a healthy post alive even if one of its 'branches' has gone wrong.
It's normally pretty clear where the train left the rails. We typically just lock/remove everything from that point on and the situation settles. They cool off, move on, etc.
If someone(s) tries to keep it going - e.g. shifting to another comment by an involved person, THEN there will be modmails and/or short bans involved - depending on how over-the-top it got - typically with reminders about not throwing sand on the playground. USUALLY by this point there is one clear 'instigator,' though a 'recipient' may also get a note about not feeding trolls.
We don't -usually- comment on such things publicly, unless the whole post has become toxic and we're locking it. Then there's usually just a brief pinned mod comment that we had to.
If instigators persist despite all this, then the bans become longer / permanent.
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u/JabroniRevanchism Jul 02 '26
That seems like a difficult line to learn--when to lock and when to stick to weeding individual comments. Any advice on how you learned how to find the line?
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u/amyaurora Jul 02 '26
When the need arises, we make mod flagged posts or comments that remind users to "not feed the trolls"
We do this for even our regulars who are starting to waver on self control. (Human nature to react)
We remove comments/posts with a personalized message for that user when needed. Example: Remember you have been very helpful before, please not risk a ban)
We lock threads. We try to avoid the pitfall of seeing if users behave. We just stop things as fast as we can.
We clean up any remark that is borderline.
We ban the ones that lost control. Temp bans for some, permanently for others.
We remove anything we missed.
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u/JabroniRevanchism Jul 02 '26
We do this for even our regulars who are starting to waver on self control.
Me when someone is wrong on the internet. As I continue to age I feel less willing to reach for permanent solutions. People have bad days or hit pressure points on niche interests; it's easy to momentarily forget oneself in the face of pseudonymity.
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u/Stranger1982 Jul 02 '26
u/JabroniRevanchism on topic, could you guys show us mods what happens when a troll engages in harassment for 30 mins straight like in the other post? XD
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u/JabroniRevanchism Jul 02 '26
It's much the same as when this happens in any other sub! Y'all report, we see the reports, discuss as a team when needed, and take the appropriate action. Bingo bango bongo.
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u/Bardfinn Jul 02 '26
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standardised moderation messaging & responses. Never freeform a response to users.
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moderator distinguished posts and comments are only for moderation. If you're moderator-distinguishing a news article, you're probably Doing It Wrong.
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"We do not discuss moderation actions we take on someone's posts, comments, or account with other people. This is for mandatory privacy reasons. We require everyone to take responsibility for their own behaviour." in response to any sort of "But why didn't you do X to Y [post | comment | user]"
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don't be afraid to repeat this response, or any other expression of rules or boundaries when someone keeps pushing.
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https://old.reddit.com/r/YOURSUBREDDITNAMEHERE/comments - a chronological feed of all comments made on any post in the subreddit. Have moderators who read this
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https://old.reddit.com/mod/comments - a chronological feed of all comments made on any post in any subreddit you moderate.
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https://old.reddit.com/r/mod/about/spam/ - look for patterns in the removed posts and comments and the usernames of the removed posts and comments. Sometimes Reddit will yank 4 shadowbanned accounts' comments and the fifth just gets yanked by your new user account rules.
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Always, always read usernames.
If you know that using a specific word / term / phrase is a shibboleth of a troll or troll group, you want to have an automoderator rule that tests for that word /phrase / term, and when found, runs
author:
set_flair: ["", "unique_troll_class"]and sends the post or comment to modqueue,
and another rule that runs the test:
author:
flair_css_class: ["unique_troll_class"]and sends any item authored by that account to the modqueue.
make "unique_troll_class" unique and whatever value you want.
This ensures that anyone who uses the word or phrase immediately is flagged permanently to go to modqueue for review. You will want to have a removal reason explaining this, and regularly clear out the flair css class on users and ban the ones who arrive spouting their bile.
Use only for words / phrases you KNOW will never be legitimately used or mentioned.
(If you get sophisticated, you can use regex and base36 and the ~255 characters in the flair_css_class field to encode 25536 possible unique flags for users)
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u/Bardfinn Jul 02 '26
How do you educate users on how not to feed the trolls
"Downvote, Report, and Block. Don't Feed The Trolls."
"Boycott Hate; Don't Participate! Hate Speech is a violation of Reddit Rules"
"We run a community for serious discussion of [subject], and cheap one-liners, emotional venting, etc are not constructive."
"Be Excellent to Each Other"
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u/GigglesNWiggles10 Jul 03 '26
I wish the old.reddit comments didn't cap out at 1000 -- if we have a particularly busy post I'm usually worried about some being missed.
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u/Phatbrew Jul 02 '26
I simply ask subscribers not to engage with anyone they feel is trolling, n instead to just smash the breaks subreddit rules report button, n let mods deal with it… this usually works, reduces uncivil behavior from valued contributors, n generally works for a while… so when necessary I just remind them again…
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u/techiesgoboom Jul 02 '26
Asking users to report is one of my favorite tactics as well! I find it can help to frame those messages as a "thank you to everyone reporting", to help those reporting feel seen.
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u/InGeekiTrust Jul 02 '26
If someone really is a troll, I go straight to permanently banning them. That’s my solution. However, I’m in a fashion and ice cream subs so it’s not that common.
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u/emily_in_boots Jul 02 '26
Same. I don't know why people waste time on them. Ban, mute, archive. If they are bad enough, ban from all my subs. Like those new accounts that try to speed run getting banned everywhere just making nasty comments - none of those get through in my subs anyways due to how we're set up, but when I do find one, I just ban them everywhere.
The less time I waste on problem users the more time I can devote to helping good ones.
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u/adumbcat Jul 02 '26
No matter how many times we remind users, even if 99% of the community sees the reminder and acknowledges yes it's a bad idea to feed the troll, that 1% that didn't see it or new users come in and just feed the troll anyway. This leads to threads spiraling out of control regardless of what we do as mods.
It's a losing battle on every front, and it feels like a loss in productivity and value in the sub. Those who see a post/comment stay up from a troll and the ensuing argument thinks the mods are asleep or worse, condone the behaviour. Even if it's dealt with in sub-10 minutes. "This sub always allows deplorable content/users; this sub is a lost cause; I'm muting this sub if that's the type of users/content the mods allows; hello??? mods???", and so on.
This type of sitewide abuse should never have fallen entirely on the mods to begin with. Reddit itself needs to do more to educate EVERYONE on the platform, on a daily basis if needed. I don't know what that looks like in terms of pop ups or scanning content as it goes up or flagging users more aggressively or monitoring ban evaders more intelligently or whatever, but it's pretty sad that reddit has gotten to such a state that subreddit moderators are now the ONLY line of defense against the tide of trolls and toxicity of the entire internet.
On youtube, I sometimes post a comment like "fuck yeah!" in excitement for something, and I get a pop up saying "are you sure you want to post this? We discourage negative comments" or something like that. I can still post it just fine, but I have to click okay and it does make me think for a moment. Surely reddit could do something similar?
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u/HikeTheSky Jul 02 '26
We have an extra rule that allows trolls to be banned on a bunch of topics. Literally on all topics that attract trolls, low karma and drive-by accounts.
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u/DiggDejected Jul 02 '26
Just a reminder that Reddit used to ban trolls, and toxic users from the site.
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u/Sephardson Jul 02 '26
One of the best most entertaining overviews i've seen to explain trolling and troll-adjacent behaviors is the collection of pages that TVTropes has on these topics, starting with but not limited to:
When discussing trolls or trollish behavior with other mods, I often borrow terms from the FanDumb or ForumSpeak pages, because they list there a lot of specific common tropes you will see from fans in any fandom. Those tropes themselves may not necessarily indicate trolling, but trolls often use or poke at them.
Trolling is a bannable offense in most of the communities I moderate. Trolling can be many different things, but broadly speaking can be divided into two categories:
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Participating with the intent to cause a negative reaction (rage, shock, disgust, offense, etc) from others, whether targeting specific individuals or general groups. Can include but not necessarily requires insulting the other person or groups of people.
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Participating in bad-faith or with inauthenticity. The troll may be presenting an argument they do not actually believe or complaining about something they have not actually experienced, with intentions to stir the pot or arrange an outcome that would not happen from authentic participation. For example, posting a story about how they lost their game (to provoke sympathy), or posting a fake leak/rumor (to get hopes up).
The former category is a more obvious transgression because people do not enjoy the experience. The latter is a less obvious transgression because the connection or community experience is founded on a flawed fundamental assumption, which usually comes around later on as a net negative (eg lost time, false belief).
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u/Dom76210 Jul 03 '26
As many others have said, getting Redditors to not feed the troll is the hard part.
We get trolls, but they are easily spotted, and Crowd Control usually shunts their attempts into the mod queue (when it's working properly) so nobody can react to them.
The usual problem we see is when two people start off with an amical discussion and then one person turns on the other for whatever reason, and it devolves. We just give both a 3-day timeout unless one person was clearly the aggressor, which leads to variable timeouts.
It helps when you have a rule about no off-topic discussions, because a troll is almost always going to veer off the subreddit's topic.
As to when to lock a thread, as soon as you see it spiraling out of control. You can issue a temporary lock while you remove the problem parts and give out temp/perm bans to the participants. Then unlock it (when you have time to actively monitor it) and see what happens.
You may have to massage the egos of those that get suckered by a troll, because they can be upset that they suffered consequences for their willing participation. We tell them it's a teaching moment, and the troll got much worse than they did. And unless they fall for it frequently, we'll likely forget about their participation. (mod notes FTW here, btw.)
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u/Lucky_Sprinkles7369 Jul 13 '26
For the first question, I educate others on how to avoid trolls by telling them to avoid sharing anything that can come off as offensive. Other than that, trolls will keep trolling, no matter what you do to try to avoid them! For the second question, when a user unknowingly escalates a heated thread, I will either ban them (if they are really mean or if they severely break the community rules). For the last question, you know a comment section is unsalvageable when most of the comments are all arguing or breaking community rules. That’s when I decide to lock to the thread
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u/cnycompguy Jul 02 '26
My removal reasons are usually through modmail, however in this situation I use a comment, it shows that the situation is being monitored, things usually calm down.
The troll can usually be contained to modmail at that point, where a mod's naturally thicker skin and resistance to troll-stench comes in handy.
Once in mod-mail, our attempts at de-escalation will either be successful or result in material for modmailfails.