As it happens I just had several PMs from the same user under a new alias on singsnap, he "apologised" for offending me (yeah right, if he was "sorry" he wouldn't do it in the ****ing first place, moron), but he says I troll on Gamefaqs, erm, no I don't, on the contrary it's THEM that troll against ME!
I reported the messages and blocked the offending user, he "says" he's had enough now, but I'm sure he'll be back tomorrow under a new alias to annoy me.
Reporting is a waste of time on the majority of forums though, the Mods tend not to do anything.
One thing I could say here, and I say this often, is... just ignore bullies and jerks. They want a response, you know? When they get one, THEY win. And it usually allows them to continue. Dont let them win. Whether on the Internet, or IRL. And this being the internet, we all know that there's LOTS of actual trolls on it, yeah? We've all seen it. We've all been there and watched unpleasantness happen.
HOWEVER. A very, very important thing to consider... is your own behavior. If people are accusing you of trolling, perhaps they could be being jerks... but perhaps not. Maybe you really DID say some stuff that offended someone, even though you didnt mean to. This happens alot, actually... you'd be surprised at how often people cause problems, yet dont spot whatsoever that they are PART of that cause. I used to have this issue myself. I have a very volatile and dark personality, as I put it (thus my name, "Misery") and years ago, on forums, I used to let it get out of control. Not on purpose. Never on purpose. But it caused some of the problems that I experienced, without me really realizing it. Once I DID realize it though, I experienced a good deal less unpleasantness in all the forums I went to. Heck, I ended up actually becoming friends with one of the people that I used to argue with, once the both of us realized that hey, maybe we WERENT acting so good. Maybe both of us were the problem, instead of it always just being the other guy. We got to talking, and I still know that guy today. However, that's a friend I wouldnt now have, if I hadnt analyzed my own behavior.
I'm not saying you did anything wrong. I'm not on those forums you mention, I didnt see the situation, so I have no clue who is to blame for what. Considering you're talking about a gaming forum, well... yeah, there's buckets of trolls in those places, the gaming community is not nice. However, I bring this up because it's something I learned the hard way (years ago), and it's very relevant to this type of issue, and I thought of it immediately when I saw your topic here. It's something I think *everyone* should be considering, when in situations like this, so I figured I'd talk about it a bit. And if it turns out that you DID in fact say something to cause part of the problem... this may be one reason why moderators do not act on the report. Heck, I have, multiple times, been reported on a couple of forums (particularly Wrongplanet, as things tend to "explode" easily there, for... whatever reason), simply for trying to calm things down, or from simply having a different opinion from someone else. Despite me always being polite and friendly towards them. In those situations, the person reporting often then thinks "the mods dont care". However, for a couple of those situations, I asked the mods involved, and they specifically pointed out to me "No, we dont have a problem with you, we see you alot on here, and you're always friendly. We're aware of the situation, but you arent part of the problem, dont worry about it". They dont act because no rules were broken. I moderate on a forum myself, and this situation comes up sometimes, and when it does, I analyze the topic, and if it turns out that A: no rules were broken, and B: the person actually WASNT being mean or whatever.... I do not take action against them. I may step into the topic simply to try to calm it down, but I dont direct any punishment at anyone unless they TRULY broke rules, or were bashing someone else. Good moderators dont take action unless someone truly did something wrong, and they analyze before making a decision.
But also remember: on really BIG forums, moderation is nigh-impossible to do. Just trust me on that one. Moderators on huge forums get SWAMPED. It's not a pleasant situation, and there's little they can do about it. Never, ever expect moderators to be very effective on huge forums. Because they usually cant be, and it's not their fault.
