"How to be a Master Troll" or "How not to act on the Internet."

[Amake]

Counter-trolling is the real challenge, and also a right and good thing to do. The goal is to make a troll feel bad about being intellectually dishonest, upsetting people and generally wasting everyone's time, or at least make it good and pissed off and let it rage impotently at you, both which serve to reduce the amount of trolling the troll does, both which is likely going to take a lot of time and effort.

On a surface level, any response you give a troll looks like it plays into the troll's hands. It's common knowledge, and like so many common knowledges an oversimplification. I've personally destroyed several trolls, so trust me: It can be done.

There is however no exact method that guarantees success. All trolls are different. But these general guidelines have served me well:

*If you're one of those people who get more eloquent and type faster the more upset you are, don't be afraid to show emotion if you are earnestly offended. Rant it up. This will look like just the outburst the troll wants, and people may tell you to take a break, not be all "serious business" and so on. But while many a troll like to pretend they don't care about people, it takes a genuine psychopath to not think twice if it can be made to understand its actions hurt actual people.

*If the troll refuses to answer a polite question or directly contradicts itself, point out these inconsistencies over and over for every time the troll posts without addressing the issue. Word your accusation differently each time, and make sure to count how many times it has failed to answer adequately. Not every troll is capable of feeling shame, but this may be a worthwhile tactic if the troll shows signs of vanity or entitlement.

*If the troll resorts to calling you names, go into deep and personally embarrassing detail and tell it why it's right, and why you're actually much worse than it could even imagine. A troll may quickly lose its confidence if it thinks it can't come up with insults bad enough for people to not mistake them for compliments.

*Merely ignoring or /ignoring a troll will dissuade it eventually, certainly, but there's an art to ignoring in such a way that shows the troll you actively disregard everything it says; that you receive its messages and find each of them unworthy of response. The cheap way to do this is to passive-aggressively talk around the troll, indirectly panning its messages while talking to someone else. In a basic example:

Alice Nottroll: Sure is sunny today.
Bob A. Troll: What are you talking about Alice there's a storm outside.
You: Yeah Alice there's certainly no storms today.

It works best in a chat, and it's pretty lame. To really pull off ignoring you need to basically have the troll standing in front of you and shout in your face, and not react at all. On the Internet that might mean letting the troll know you have its attention and then stop doing everything until it leaves.

*If you're enlightened enough, instead of any of the above you can engage the troll in meaningful, personal conversation until it forgets to be a troll. Make friends with them until they beg for mercy.