Troll Management - Vanilla Success
<main> <article class="userContent"> <p>In an online community, "trolls"<strong> </strong>are people who intentionally start fights with other users by provoking them with off-topic, incendiary, or divisive content. Their goal is to purposely upset users and derail the conversation.</p><p>As you can imagine, you don't want Trolls infesting your <strong>Higher Logic Vanilla (Vanilla)</strong> community. With this in mind, the <strong>Troll Management </strong>addon was created to prevent this from happening. When enabled, this feature allows Admins and Moderators to mark users as Trolls.</p><h2 data-id="what-does-flagging-a-user-as-a-troll-do">What does flagging a user as a Troll do?</h2><ul><li>Users marked as Trolls are given no indication of this; as far as they know, nothing has changed in their account or in their ability to participate.</li><li>While Trolls <em>can </em>still post in your Vanilla community, their posts are invisible to other users.</li><li>Only Admins and Moderators can see content posted by Trolls.</li><li>A red "Troll" label displays on the Troll user's profile page. This label is <em>only </em>visible to Admins and Moderators.</li></ul><p>The central idea behind this moderation tool is that if everyone stops responding to a Troll's offensive and inflammatory comments (because their content is invisible), then eventually the Troll will become bored and leave your Vanilla community on their own. Remember, their ultimate goal is to illicit emotional responses from other users; when this doesn't happen, they'll look elsewhere.</p><h2 data-id="required-permission">Required permission</h2><p>Users must belong to a Role with the <code class="code codeInline" spellcheck="false" tabindex="0">Garden</code> > <code class="code codeInline" spellcheck="false" tabindex="0">Moderation</code> > <code class="code codeInline" spellcheck="false" tabindex="0">Manage</code> permission to use this feature. This is generally reserved for Admins and Moderators.</p><div class="embedExternal embedImage display-large float-none"> <div class="embedExternal-content"> <a class="embedImage-link" href="https://us.v-cdn.net/6030677/uploads/C8BT54O9PFXQ/permissions.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer noopener ugc" target="_blank"> <img class="embedImage-img" src="https://us.v-cdn.net/6030677/uploads/C8BT54O9PFXQ/permissions.png" alt="permissions.png" height="428" width="848" loading="lazy" data-display-size="large" data-float="none"></img></a> </div> </div> <p>To learn how to access and manage your Roles and their permissions, check out the article below.</p><div class="js-embed embedResponsive" data-embedjson="{"body":"Two of the most important aspects of your Higher Logic Vanilla (Vanilla) community are Roles and permissions: Roles are like high-level categories in which your users are grouped. Each Role can be customized with a unique set of permissions to control what users with that Role can see and do in your community. 📝 NOTE:…","photoUrl":"https:\/\/us.v-cdn.net\/6030677\/uploads\/VWGAXAF5OFCO\/microsoftteams-image.png","url":"https:\/\/success.vanillaforums.com\/kb\/articles\/39-roles-permissions","embedType":"link","name":"Roles & Permissions - Vanilla Success"}"> <a href="https://success.vanillaforums.com/kb/articles/39-roles-permissions" rel="nofollow noreferrer ugc"> https://success.vanillaforums.com/kb/articles/39-roles-permissions </a> </div><h2 data-id="mark-user-as-troll">Mark user as Troll</h2><p><strong>📝 NOTE</strong>: For first time or more minor trolling offenses, you may want to consider warning the user first. If a moderator determines that a user hasn't corrected their behaviour after being warned, use of this tool is warranted and recommended.</p><ol><li>Navigate to the Troll user's profile page.</li><li>Click the <strong>actions menu </strong>and select <strong>Mark as Troll</strong>.</li></ol><div class="embedExternal embedImage display-large float-none"> <div class="embedExternal-content"> <a class="embedImage-link" href="https://us.v-cdn.net/6030677/uploads/B9NO4P3PRJ2A/mark-troll-1.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer noopener ugc" target="_blank"> <img class="embedImage-img" src="https://us.v-cdn.net/6030677/uploads/B9NO4P3PRJ2A/mark-troll-1.png" alt="mark_troll-1.png" height="441" width="1080" loading="lazy" data-display-size="large" data-float="none"></img></a> </div> </div> <p>Now, a red "Troll" label displays on their profile page. This label is <em>only </em>visible to Admins and Moderators; the Troll will receive no indication that anything occurred.</p><div class="embedExternal embedImage display-large float-none"> <div class="embedExternal-content"> <a class="embedImage-link" href="https://us.v-cdn.net/6030677/uploads/KTO28X0WCVS1/troll-label-on-profile.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer noopener ugc" target="_blank"> <img class="embedImage-img" src="https://us.v-cdn.net/6030677/uploads/KTO28X0WCVS1/troll-label-on-profile.png" alt="troll_label_on_profile.png" height="355" width="1042" loading="lazy" data-display-size="large" data-float="none"></img></a> </div> </div> <p>In addition, a Troll user's posts are visually flagged to Admins and Moderators, as you see below:</p><div class="embedExternal embedImage display-large float-none"> <div class="embedExternal-content"> <a class="embedImage-link" href="https://us.v-cdn.net/6030677/uploads/484/17LGFRK9C7KS.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer noopener ugc" target="_blank"> <img class="embedImage-img" src="https://us.v-cdn.net/6030677/uploads/484/17LGFRK9C7KS.png" alt="User: "image.png"" height="180" width="320" loading="lazy" data-display-size="large" data-float="none"></img></a> </div> </div> <h2 data-id="remove-troll-status">Remove Troll status</h2><ol><li>Navigate to the Troll user's profile page.</li><li>Click the <strong>actions menu </strong>and select <strong>Unmark as Troll</strong>.</li></ol><div class="embedExternal embedImage display-large float-none"> <div class="embedExternal-content"> <a class="embedImage-link" href="https://us.v-cdn.net/6030677/uploads/KSC2LRDS3TBN/unmark-troll.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer noopener ugc" target="_blank"> <img class="embedImage-img" src="https://us.v-cdn.net/6030677/uploads/KSC2LRDS3TBN/unmark-troll.png" alt="unmark_troll.png" height="441" width="1069" loading="lazy" data-display-size="large" data-float="none"></img></a> </div> </div> <h2 data-id="shared-accounts">Shared accounts</h2><p>The Troll Management addon provides an additional benefit called <strong>shared accounts</strong>; what this does it register and display all of a user's accounts on their profile. </p><ul><li>This is especially helpful regarding Trolls because it can help you identify when the same user is leveraging multiple accounts <em>from the same device </em>in a ploy to work around their Troll status.</li></ul><p><strong>📝 NOTE</strong>: There is a limitation with this feature: these shared accounts are determined by <em>cookie</em>, not <em>IP</em>, so it is possible to get around it.</p><div class="embedExternal embedImage display-large float-none"> <div class="embedExternal-content"> <a class="embedImage-link" href="https://us.v-cdn.net/6030677/uploads/W1ZAMPAQWTKN/shared-accounts-example.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer noopener ugc" target="_blank"> <img class="embedImage-img" src="https://us.v-cdn.net/6030677/uploads/W1ZAMPAQWTKN/shared-accounts-example.png" alt="shared_accounts_example.png" height="617" width="1190" loading="lazy" data-display-size="large" data-float="none"></img></a> </div> </div> <h2 data-id="where-could-other-users-potentially-see-troll-posts">Where could other users potentially see Troll posts?</h2><p>There are a two circumstances where a Troll's post could slip "under the radar" and be accessible:</p><ul><li><strong>Via a direct link</strong>. While unlikely, if a user received a direct link to a Troll's post, they'd be able to circumvent the addon and access it.</li><li>Troll posts can still technically be found via <strong>external search engines</strong>, as they'll find and index the content.</li></ul><p>For these reasons, it's important to know when to mark a user as a Troll and when to simply ban them and delete their posts entirely.</p> </article> </main>