Everyone knows what a forum troll is.  You know, those (usually) level 1 alts that come into your thread, talk bad about players, guilds, etc., and usually can walk away unscathed, hiding behind their alt and never revealing their true identity.  Forum trolls can annoy even the most mature WoW players, by telling painful truths, poking fun at events in the past, or even flat-out lying about certain things.

Forum Trolls & Me

Forum trolls absolutely crack me up.  I usually prowl the Stormscale realm forums while at work if I’m not busy, and I usually have at least a couple of active threads of my own, either for guild recruitment (I am always recruiting), advertising this blog or Moonkin.info, or anything else.

For some reason, I have a personal group of trolls who seem absolutely dedicated to post in every thread I make, comment on my guilds progression, or bash my members or tell me that my guild is falling apart.  Throughout my time hanging around on the forums, I don’t think I can say I’ve ever let a troll get the best of me by lashing out immaturely, or ever actually gotten angry IRL because of what a troll has said.  I mean, its a game.  I pay to enjoy it, not to let it get me angry.

Why would people troll you?

There are a million reasons why you could have trolls who seem to only make you want to suffer.  These could be people that used to be in your guild, people you kicked out of a PuG, maybe someone you forgot to reply a whisper to one day.  Who knows.  The fact of the matter is that there are people out there who want to get a reaction from you regardless of what it takes, and they generally have nothing to lose since they are posting from alts.

I really don’t know why people troll me, nor do I care.  I generally assume that the number of trolls I have in a thread of mine has a direct correalation with my effect on the server.  Some people say I have no life because I run a blog about my character — I run the site because I like talking about the game, and it makes me money, to boot.  People have already began bashing this blog on the forums — they say there are many better sites that can provide strats and tips and that I’m just wasting my time; was Google the first search engine to ever be launched?

Your Responsibility with Forum Trolls

If you are reading this blog, I am generally assuming you are a GM, Raid Leader, Officer or your guild.  Even if you’re not, the same rules should apply, as even just a regular raider should represent his guild properly.  Here are a few guidelines to follow:

• Don’t let the troll get the best of you – While a forum troll usually has nothing to lose, no e-reputation to harm, guilds to misrepresent, you DO.  Responding to a troll usually takes caution, because you do have things at stake, and there are many other people reading the thread.  If trolled, play it smoothly, I’ll give more tips down the page.
• You are better than the troll – Provided that you ever haven’t been stupid on the forums and aren’t generally hated on your server, you are automatically better than the troll, since you actually have the balls to post on your main character.  Most people on the forums hate trolls just as much as you do, so responding to trolls maturely or ignoring them altogether should gain you the support of your fellow players.  Don’t stoop to their level (no pun intended).
• Everyone is watching – Even if no one else is writing in your thread except you and your troll, there are many people reading the thread.  Don’t respond bashing another guild, or give any indication that what the troll has said has affected you in any way.  That is what they are looking for, and responding with emotion or “butt-hurt” is an instant win for the troll, even if they were trolling with a lie.  Pretend you were having the argument in /2, everyone is reading, except this time, what you say is permanent (for the most part).

Macbook’s Tips on How to Respond to Trolls

1. Completely ignore the troll. For the most part, I’d venture a guess that most forum trolls are under the age of 18, with short attention spans.  If you ignore them long enough, you can bet 20 Abyss Crystals that they will eventually get bored of your thread and leave.
2. Respond Sarcastically. If you are going to respond sarcastically, do it with class.  If a troll calls you bad, you can sometimes reply simply saying, “Yeah, its true, I’m a baddie McBadster”, or something along those lines.
3. Respond truthfully. In my opinion, only people skilled in dealing with trolls should do this.  I think one time a troll made fun of my guild because we didn’t have enough for Ulduar one night, so we 20-manned Naxx25 instead.  I coolly responded that we did, in fact, enjoy running Tier 7 content, while managing to clear up to Yogg in Ulduar 25, all in 3 nights of raiding.
4. Respond jovially. Joke around with the troll, have fun.  After all, its a game, why should you get annoying or bothered by anything?  The fact that the troll is taking time to comment on your thread is already indication enough that he cares, don’t reward his waste of time by caring back.

Conclusion

I think I’ve covered most everything on this post, but definitely enjoy the screenshots below and inside the post.  I find trolling funny and usually failed attempts at eliciting anger from me, but I am a very laid back in real life, and laid back in game, as well.  Greatness inspires envy, and while I’m not suggesting that I am “great” at WoW, there will always be people that feel like attacking you for certain things.  Keep that in mind, and enjoy the game

Macbook

Forum Trolling Screenshots

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Guild drama is a factor in every single guild, from casual leveling guilds to hardcore raiding guilds, you can’t absolutely escape the drama.  It is how a guild deals with drama that sets them apart from the thousands of other guilds out there, and how you can minimize the effect of drama on your guild members that keeps guilds together.

Introduction

We all have heard stories of guilds breaking up, and angry players taking out all their friends from a guild to join another.  Personally, when I left my old guild to form <iRaid>, I indirectly took almost 20 people (by indirectly I mean I only asked two people to come with me, the rest all whispered me when they saw I gquit).  To a raiding guild, even the loss of just a few core raiders can be a huge push back in progression raiding, unless the guild is prepared to deal with it and can recuperate in a timely fashion.

Last Night’s Guild Drama

My guild had a good bit of drama last night, probably more drama last night than the guild had in the entire 4 months we have been a guild.  Here’s what happened, feel free to skip to the next section if you don’t like personal updates:

I wasn’t the official GM of my guild until yesterday.  When I formed the guild, my coworker, aka Darkleaf, said he wanted to be a GM, and since he had been GM of previous guilds and is more mature than me, I readily agreed.  Last night, partially based on medical advice and high stress levels, he decided to quit the game (for the most part), and pass me GM.

Regardless, we ran into Ulduar25 last night full force, started 30 minutes early, and had almost 10 people on the bench waiting to get in.  We were blazing through, doing record times and 1 shotting most bosses (because I wanted to clear up to Yogg on our first raid night), but we eventually started losing steam.  After wiping on Thorim for 3 times, one of our officers, a beast resto druid healer, decided he was “going to PvP, tired of wiping”.  Knowing full-well he would gquit the guild if I demoted him to a regular raider (he has a large ego), I demoted said player and he instantly gquit, eventually taking with him most of his RL friends (none of whom which I actually cared about particularly).

Not only that, I had a holy pally recruit qq’ing all night about our BoE policy.  My guild takes all BoE drops (that aren’t BIS), and sells them to fund guild repairs.  We asked our starting raiders when we formed the guild if they preferred to have guild-funded repairs or access to BoEs, and the decision was unanimous.  Said pally would not quit qq’ing (he was even an app, completely ineligible for loot, and I still gave him 2 pieces of loot since he was the only holy pally), telling people to “farm your own gold for repairs”, and I had to eventually Gkick him.  That was the first person I had ever gkicked.

What Can You Learn About Guild Drama?

There are a few things you can learn from hearing about my guild drama, which hopefully will save your guild from collapsing when stuff like this happens.  My guild isn’t going anywhere, no one even said anything in guild chat when like 5 people gquit the guild.  Here are some key points:

• Know the type of players you want in your guild. With our new guild recruitment policies, we keep players for 1-2 weeks in a rank called “iApp”, where they are ineligible for loot or guild repairs.  It has taken a bit of trial-and-error to know by now what type of players we are looking to recruit.
• Attitude is half of the fight. There are players who think they are better than everyone in your guild, and you usually do not want these players.  They are usually the players that will show up on farm nights, avoid the progression nights, and ninja log when the wiping starts.  These players are counter-productive to any progression-based guild, and usually hurt the morale of the rest of the players.
• Choose your officers wisely. We made a mistake one time of making one of the most immature players I’ve ever met in my life (he server transferred months ago and still trolls our recruitment threads) an officer when we first started the guild.  Officers, Role Leaders, Class Leaders, etc, should all epitomize the type of players you are looking for in your guild.  For example, my officers are always usually present for all raids, and consistently out-performing the rest of the raid.
• Everyone is replaceable. When someone leaves your guild, don’t make the mistake of trying to get them back in.  Gquitting is usually permanent, and no matter how good a player was, you should always retain a sense of pride for you and your guild.  You can bet your pants that a player that is willing to leave the guild for petty drama would probably have left somewhere down the road anyways, so he is just saving you the time.
• Cut your losses. Removing players that you know for a fact are going to gquit somewhere down the road or aren’t a good fit for what you are striving for in your guild is a viable plan.  There is no reason to continue to bring a player you don’t like to your raids, and continue to give them loot.

Conclusion

Drama happens to every guild out there, and it can (and will) slow your guilds progression if you let it hit you unprepared.  Even people you have geared to the teeth and been nice to can eventually turn on you and even bash the guild later on.  To minimize your guild’s drama, you should know how to effectively deal with it without seeming like an awful dictator, while at the same time maintaining the respect your position of authority merits.

Macbook

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