Cystic Fibrosis Wiki:Troll Policy

The  is an official policy on the that discusses what not to do when dealing with internet trolls, vandals, and spammers.

Definitions
“Troll” is an internet slang term that refers to an individual who posts controversial, inflammatory, irrelevant, or off-topic messages on an online community, such as the Bleach Fan Fiction Wiki, with the primary intention of provoking other users into an emotional, over-dramatic, or heated response in order to disrupt a website. Users must be cautious when using the term “troll” to describe another user, as the term is subjective. Some users may consider a comment or action to be trolling, while others may regard the same thing as a legitimate contribution even if it may be somewhat controversial. Users should try to limit assuming the motives of others, as misuse of the term may be considered a personal attack.

“Vandal” is a term to describe those who deliberately vandalize, defame, deface, and/or degrade pages. This wiki has two broad definitions of types of vandalism for dealing with situations. The first is posting non-vulgar and/or non-explicit gibberish and/or nonsense on articles, whereas the second one deals with the same thing only explicit and vulgar. “Spammers” are similar to vandals in that regard. Spammers also leave non-constructive and/or pointless comments, messages, etc. on articles, talk pages, and forums.

Dealing with the issue
Users must not “feed the trolls” on this wiki. What this means is that whenever a user reacts to those who provoke them, they are giving those who provoke them what they want. The more a user reacts, the more the troll, vandal, or spammer will continue what they are doing. The analogy most often used on this wiki is the one about the bully on the playground. Many mothers tell their children that the best way to deal with playground bullies is to ignore them, as the bullies are only looking for reactions from those they consider weaker, inferior, or easier targets. The same goes for this wiki; if users do not react in over-the-top manners, then the trolls will move on.

On wikis, it is necessary to have some form of reaction to individuals such as vandals, as users must revert the damage done to pages. This, however, is a calm and limited reaction. Pages listing vandals and trolls, starting “Anti-Vandal Wars”, creating templates and categories about anti-vandal and anti-troll fighting, and excited and dramatic reactions are all things that will encourage these types of people to continue defacing the wiki. Rather than doing this, users should maintain the calm and limit reactions by fixing the mess and then going back to what they are here for–contributing legitimate content and furthering the push to make this wiki the best it can be.

Consequences
There are no actual established consequences, such as lengths of blocks or specific block guidelines, for those who feed the trolls. For the most part, the continued actions of the trolls, vandals, and spammers due to the feeding of them will be considered enough of a consequence. That said, if users get out of hand in feeding these types of nonconstructive users, administrators may use their discretion in invoking the disruption policy.