Monitoring Communities 

I have to be honest I never really knew what an internet troll was before reading this article. However, I now believe that most trolls are sad people, living their lonely lives vicariously through those they see as strong and successful. For trolls, any response is recognition; their ego grows directly in proportion to the response, regardless of the form or content of that response. Trolls are mostly located where ever they are tolerated, in weaker communities with no monitoring systems where they are free to cause trouble. However, internet trolls are easily identified and dealt with as shown at the end of Cory Doctorow article of how one troll was over powered when other users come together, just as society deals with a common school yard bully.  

The online community I recently joined is Madden student, which is a football video game where you can go online check where you rank challenge other players, and share offensive and defensive strategies with one another. As for trolling in the Madden Student community I would have to say it’s at a minimum, which is surprising for a sporting website where everyone is super competitive and have to right to post and comment on whatever you like. Nevertheless there is still a policy agreement that you have to read and check off on before becoming a member (shown in figure #2) to make sure you abide by the ruled such as, you will not post any messages that are obscene, vulgar, sexually-oriented, hateful, threatening, or otherwise violate of any laws and the owners of Madden Students Forums reserve the right to remove, edit, move or close any content item for any reason.

                                                  Figure#1                                                                                 

                                                                   Figure #2

                                                                                                                      

          There is also a unique way of identifying and ignoring any trolls if you so happen to come across one. Madden student has a rating, and ranking system where other members and administration can rate you. For example if you have been a member for over 2 years and have abided by the policy agreement you get the rank of senior member (figure #1) and 5 golden stars, where as a new member starts off as a junior member with one bronze star and a possible troll you should ignore has the title of outsider with no stars and has one month to redeem himself or his account is deleted.