Um...
So if I'm reading correctly, this doesn't really affect the troll so much as the member who gets fed up by them. The overwhelming majority of the members who do get fed up with them are the users who seem to genuinely care about the forums from what I've seen or just genuinely have a pretty low tolerance from dealing with them in general, which is usually understanding.
I'm not saying that they should be responding in the way that they - and I, in occasions in the past - have, but Jesus Christ, how about actually removing the trolls from the site rather than threatening people who get their panties in a bunch and respond to trolls exactly how they want them to in the first place? They're obviously always up to no good and end up being banned at the end of the day anyway. If you think someone is here to troll, and there is evidence that they're trolling, take it upon yourself and make an executive judgment and deal with the problem by removing them from creating any more problems. They're the ones who create the disharmony among the community.
Everything here always has to be done to a system. Trolls in the past have trolled for years before they got banned, because they always knew how to dodge the rules just enough for their efforts to be moot. What gets me angry about this is, rather than changing the method of dealing with the trolls, you guys are changing the method of dealing with people who respond to them.
Maybe you should rebrand this announcement "Dealing with people who take it upon themselves to deal with trolls."
You're correct with your statement about this being about the people who responded to trolls, but I have a couple qualms with your latter points.
The problem with people reacting was that it was adding fuel to the fire the trolls were trying to create. It edged them on, which caused them to go further. A situation which could have been handled quickly and quietly turned into something that was across the entire forum. All we're simply trying to do here is spread word that retaliating to these trolls is something that we won't take as acceptable behavior anymore. The less people that are involved with these things, the better, and I think this is a step in the right direction. People need to be aware that this is a new thing, so an announcement was made to get the word out.
Regarding how we handle the trolls, and the slow respond time you say we have, that's not really something I can answer. As you probably know, only h-staff deals with permanently banning people. I wish I could provide some light on this, but I really don't know how these things are handled besides it's taken case by case.
Oh, and for the record...
Aphrodite said:
baiting trolls in the sense of consciously egging them on is one thing but punishing someone for any other reaction is overzealous and doesn't make sense
This is what we're going for. There's a clear difference between edging the troll on, and reacting on emotion. Besides, the only way people would get punished by this rule is if the person is obviously provoking the troll past all sense of reason, or if the person absolutely refused to step back and let staff take care of it. What's most likely going to happen if a troll strikes a sour chord and it irritates you to a point of action, is that you're going to get a message from a staff member to step back and let them deal with it, and that the staff is doing something. We're not going to start punishing victims, because that's just not right. It's about preventing members from antagonizing trolls further through intentional actions. No one is perfect, and we're not expecting people to just turn the other cheek every single time. People need a little nudge to remind them that staff is doing something sometimes, and that's what we're doing.
And stop replying to this thread so fast, I can't keep up, haha.