The media just loves the internet troll and we have an article in the Groan dissecting the various types with a little bit of rent seeking thrown in for good measure. Well, it is the Groan, what did you expect? Mostly, though, what we see termed as trolling, isn’t; it’s just plain old harassment and bullying. However, having been on the receiving end of this, I recognise the description only too well.
This craftier breed is neither obviously hateful, nor openly offensive. Instead, these trolls live in the twilight between what we think their intentions are, and what they really intend. The fact is that we never know another person’s intentions. We are only ever guessing, based on the evidence they present us with, and a crafty troll will present just enough evidence of being credible that to block them would seem like a dangerous step towards infringing free speech. Such trolls will even use this defence, and accuse those who block them of cowardice, censorship, and losing the argument. The average individual is left stuck between doing the morally upstanding thing (upholding free speech, engaging in a debate) and the wise thing (protecting their own peace of mind).
Actually, the reality is that they are just as easy to deal with as any other type of stalker, bully or troll – ban and delete. If you use WordPress’ first time moderation facility, then no one is any the wiser. That is, unless you agree to publish anything, no matter what, in the name of free speech. Bear in mind, though, that free speech does not apply on private property and you are under no obligation to indulge the fantasies of some passive aggressive stalker who gets his rocks off trying to play psychological games with you.
So, use whatever anti-spam tools are available to you such as Akismet, as this will frequently send them to the spam queue without any prompting on your part anyway and no one can hear them scream from the spam queue, no matter how loudly they complain – and, no, you are not obliged to provide them with a platform to indulge their freedom of speech to attack you.
If you have a self-hosted site, there are all sorts of plugins that will help you, including identifying their real IP as they are likely using a proxy to hide from you while at the same time goading you for using a pseudonym. Yeah, I know, double standards and all that. I never said these jokers were very bright, did I? Anyway, once you have the real IP, you can set it to go straight to spam irrespective of the proxy they are using.
Cloudflare, if you have the time and inclination to set it up, will block a lot of these proxies anyway – and you can block whole countries if you like.
In the end, though, the determined troll or stalker will keep trying to get past your defences. The first time moderation one is beyond them. If they fool you in the first instance, you can always set them to moderation at a later stage, so all is not lost. Then, you just keep deleting unless you want to gather evidence for a possible future criminal investigation, in which case, download your logs and keep them safe before deleting the comments from you spam queue.