On Learning A Lesson I Already Know.

The Fremont Troll, originally uploaded by Dave Gorman.

Don't feed the trolls. It's one of the mantra's of good internet use. I know it's good advice. It's advice I give easily. It's advice I take less easily. I am a foolish man.

It seems to me that it's really easy to work out whether online behaviour is acceptable or not. Imagine saying it in a bar. There are loads of musicians I like, loads I'm not so fussed about and some I really just don't get. That's true for all of us.

Imagine seeing a musician you're not really in to at a local bar. Would you approach them and - without even saying hello - say, "I thought your last album was shit."

Only a mannerless oaf would do so. And the musician would be well within their rights to tell them to sling their hook if it happened. But for some reason, people who in their day to day life manage to be courteous to others aren't always the same on the internet. Whether it's the inherent anonymity or the distance or something else I couldn't tell you. It's sort of like playing knock-and-run only it's played by grown ups. (Come to think of it, I was always too scared to play knock-and-run as a kid. That and I didn't really get the joke. (Ha ha ha... they opened their door! Huh?))

Anyway, when someone indulges in this behaviour, deep down they know they're being impolite and out of line and they want to provoke a reaction. The correct advice is always to ignore them. If it's on a service like Twitter, block them. You'd move to a different bar if it happened in real life, there's no rule that says you have to let just-anyone talk to you... so choose not to engage. In short; don't feed the trolls.

This morning I fed a troll. He sent me a message last night saying that something I'd done was shit. It's obviously not a nice thing to read but I'm thick skinned enough to not be upset by it... I'm more fascinated by the idea that someone is sitting somewhere thinking, "Oh look, it's that bloke I've never met. I'll send him an insult." I just don't quite get it.

But when I looked at his Twitter stream it became obvious that he'd spent quite a lot of time trolling other people in the same way. And at least one person had blocked him. That person was Paul Daniels. I know this because the troll was boasting about having been blocked by the 71 year old conjuror. From the trolls point of view it seemed as though being blocked was enough of a reaction. To him it was a sign of temper. I suspect in truth it was a sign of calm.

Somehow I decided for myself that simply blocking him would be in effect feeding this particular troll because he had taken it upon himself to celebrate such things. So instead, I decided to calmly point out his rudeness. I sent him a tweet that firstly corrected one of his factual errors, then accepted that he hadn't liked something but that others had and ended with the words, "long distance, internet heckling is for cocks." I know I shouldn't have done. But, well, it's not exactly hardcore abuse and it is really a comment on his impolite behaviour more than anything else. (It's also true.)

I shouldn't really have done that. And having done that I should have left it there. But he replied and I replied and I'm pretty sure the whole thing was pretty undignified. But along the way I thought a small victory was being won. Not me against him. I mean a small victory for politeness.

Because he started to reconfigure what he'd said. Suddenly, starting a conversation with "that series you did was shit" wasn't an insult at all. And actually he did like some of my other stuff he'd just tried to express an opinion about a show. And I had to learn to take stuff on the chin. Which was weird because I felt like that's exactly what I was doing. And then he asked if we could put it all behind us.

And I felt glad that he seemed to have accepted that while he was of course perfectly entitled to his opinion his lack of manners in expressing it was the issue. I should have put it all behind me. By just blocking him. Which I did. But because I was aware that a few people were now following the childish spat, I didn't just block him... I said so. Because I wanted those people to know that it was dealt with.

I also figured that he wouldn't really be able to boast about being blocked as he had done before because he'd just asked if we could put the matter behind us.

But I was wrong. Because a troll needs to feel victorious. Attention is what they crave. And I'd just given him a big dose. And instead of feeling contrite for having his rudeness pointed out to him (what was I thinking?) he decided that being blocked was a sign that I'd really taken the whole thing to heart. Silly, silly me. Why don't I just sit there and let a stranger insult me... have I no balls at all! Tsk!

Anyway... I know I did the wrong thing. If you were one of the people watching the thing pan out, I apologise for allowing myself to get dragged into something so childish.

Next time I'll block. And let whoever it is feel like they've got to me. Because the lesson is surely that they're going to decide to feel like that whether I block them or not.

And I knew that yesterday just as surely as I know it now. For a couple of minutes this morning I thought I'd tamed a troll. Lesson learned. There are many things that Paul Daniels does better than me. I didn't imagine that handling trolls was one of them. Darn.