Trolling can be an art form but not with these guys. A lowlife troll's graphics, videos or texts are pitched at a ninth-grade concept of "nasty", are off-topic and probably false, and are designed simply to offend and disrupt. Remember he's not in the room with you. A dork using digital text and images to provoke blurted responses, he's got nothing unless he can spook you. In fact, the troll gets the only power that he has from your anger and fear, so the first rule is, don't give him any. If you respond "fuck you!", or it's equivalent, you make his day. if you whimper "oh please stop", he'll be in bliss for a week.

Any troll wins if you use more more words to reply than he used to gig you into responding. So if you earnestly engage him, to show him the error of his ways, his sides may split from laughing or from overeating without appreciating eating. In other words, ignoring is best. If you must answer, make it short and sweet -- or short and snide -- and calm.

In the Minds community, if two people both want to troll each other, make a game of it, that's their business. If a troll with a middle-school brain makes such a clatter with unwilling people that adult conversation is impossible, that's another matter. Here's how on Minds 1) to know when seeming Web rejects should be left to frolic, 2) to get rid of a troll who is attacking you or your group, and 3) to help identify a rare attack on Minds itself and then watch a troll go down hard.

WHEN THE SPECTACLE OF TROLLS WRESTLING IN THE MOONLIGHT IS JUST FUNNY AND NOBODY ELSE'S BUSINESS

Trolling was once simply a form of pranking, the act of the swiftly intelligent running circles around the slower. It arguably has its ancestry in the Mellow Yellow movement of the 1960s....

British songwriter Donovan, with Paul McCartney chiming in, wrote "Mellow Yellow," a song about a ladies' yellow vibrator named Saffron. The record's program notes trolled it, insisting instead that the song was about the hallucinogenic effects of smoking dried banana skins. Knowing that dried banana skins were not in fact hallucinogenic, tie-dyed California goofballs began passing the word to gullible mainstream reporters that smoking b-skins could get you really stoned. This media went ape, causing an adult intercontinental panic about any kids seen with bananas....

For the current ultimate in such "shitposting" see What is Kekistan? the true story of a fake country thought up by... well there are two versions:

1) thought up one night by five multicultural Progressives. It was picked up by media like CNN, which portrayed it as a violent neo-Nazi threat to humanity. Meanwhile adopted by some of the more credulous members of the right wing, "Kek" got more widespread and ridiculous by the moment. That's what the left says. Or you could accept the rightwing version, which

2) begins with the premise that no one on the left can meme, therefore that cannot have been a leftwing meme, and proceeds sometimes to assertions that Kek has deep occult significance. Definitely not something for you to bother to be offended by.

True programming culture, as opposed to Facebook, has moreover an active dedication to freedom of speech. Even Progressive programmers. who follow the rules of politically correct speech in their own conversations, refuse to impose those rules on others. Folks in some circles routinely test one another on that proposition. Being as personally offensive as possible without emotionally rising to the bait that others deliberately put in their path is treated as a sport. Anyone's getting his jock strap in a twist from some provocation proves that he wants freedom of speech only for himself, and he loses.

There are therefore posts and threads on Minds where the conversation topic may be serious, but outrageously offensive mutual trolling is constant, and all involved are calm. Easy to spot, these posters have a level of eloquence and erudition that no real troll could muster, more like The Onion than a troll. Their trading uber nasty zingers is consensual fun. With them, you have the power of choice. Listen in if you wish. No one is prevented from reading anything on Minds, except what goes on in closed groups. If you're offended, quit reading that thread. It won't come after you. With all that that said, if you've got a real trolls in your own channels, people who are deliberately gumming up your works, often being seven steps beyond disgusting in the process, you have the power to take them out. Here's how....

ON YOUR CHANNEL? BLOCK, DELETE, RINSE, REPEAT

First, Block the troll's channel, so that he cannot comment on any of your channel's posts or appear in your news stream in the future. [Minds does not want you to block so it makes it hard. Click on the troll's icon in order to go to his channel, scroll down to "Subscribe." Note the three tiny dots, right side, above. Open. Block.] Second, delete his present and past comments. [Click the trashcan icon above his comments.] Third, if you still see him in your Newsfeed, it's because someone is Reminding the troll's posts, enabling him. Mute the notifications of the reminding person [upper righthand corner of post, down arrow] until the troll moment passes. Fourth, if the troll comes back on you under a new name, rinse and repeat.

Remember, on your own posts, don't delete people's comments just because you disagree with them. On Minds, you'd be taken for a fool.

SYSTEM-WIDE

If reports of a specific troll repeatedly gumming myriad channels suddenly start coming in, that potentially indicates a (very rare) system-wide abuser.
So do report real harassment and spam activity to the Minds Support channel. [There are two ways to let Support know. If it's a post, there's a down arrow in the upper righthand corner. Use the pulldown menu to Report. If it's in comments, mark it with the Flag icon just above the comments.] Minds is a mutual defense pact, we're all part of it, and the first lines of defense are individuals and groups looking out for each other. That decentralized sense of responsibility, those alert people all over the site, is an advantage. Dedicated to free speech, the Minds admins will move cautiously: check all reports, warn the apparent site abuser first. If the developers determine that he's posing a real threat to everyone's else's right to relax and talk, my observation is, he's punched the wrong hornet's nest....

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I've written other articles about life on Minds and how to use the software which may be of use to you: For example:

Hey Folks! How To Be A Useful User On Minds In Beta

Culture Shock: From Facebook To Minds

Where To Ask Questions, Make Suggestions -- And Get Answers -- On Minds

Turning Minds Newsfeed Into Your Personal Pleasure Cruise

Easy User Tricks: Workarounds While Minds Coders Build The Future

Dragon's Interactive Treasure Trove of Resources for Learning and Using Minds.Com

YOUR SPECIAL POWERS ON MINDS OVER INTERNET TROLLS