“Many community conveners are not technically capable of writing their own message-board tools, but socially qualified to wield them. For example, Teresa Nielsen Hayden is a troll-whisperer. For some reason, she can spot irredeemable trolls and separate them from the merely unsocialized. She can keep discussions calm and moving forward. She knows when deleting a troll’s message will discourage him, and when it will only spark a game of whack-a-mole. Teresa calls it “having an ear for text” and she is full of maddeningly unquantifiable tips for spotting the right rod to twiddle to keep the reactor firing happily without sparking a meltdown.

If you want to fight trolling, don’t make up a bunch of a priori assumptions about what will or won’t discourage trolls. Instead, seek out the troll whisperer and study their techniques.