Obsessive Troll problem?

Question

There is a section in Yahoo Answers devoted to answering questions about Travel to Greece .

As many of the genuine regular answerers on there are Greeks , or are people who are very knowledgeable about all aspects of Greek Language , music , song , culture current affairs , cookery , history and so on , a lot of off-topic stuff about the country and its people are also answered .

Unfortunately the section is regularly stalked by a habitual and obsessive troll , who posts insults at the genuine answerers including extended crudely obscene language in both English and Greek ( and we have a lot of children who come there for school homework help about Greek topics )

Eventually his accounts are deleted but he always comes back within hours with some new duplicated account he has created and the filthy spam-posting starts again .

Although we report his posts regularly , Yahoo do not always delete these promptly , and inserting explanatory pleas to the Moderators as additional information in reports seems to be inneffective .

The man was silly enough to tell us his real name from which members research established that in real life he has a record of fraud and abusing the UK court processes , is classed as a " Vexatious Litigant " = has to get a judges permission to start a case or to appear on is own behalf . ( Just pointing out the bloke is an unpleasant nutter with Form )

How do we stop him Vandalising the Yahoo answers service ?

Anonymous · Answer

As others have said, report on sight - but only questions or answers that are in breach of guidelines on a standalone basis; otherwise you risk losing reporting trust for a false report. For anything more complex, save details to pass on to y_answrs_team@yahoo.com

One piece of strong advice in handling this: *don't* chat about or attack this user in posts, especially anything that might be libellous or defamatory.

Whether you like it or not, public "calling out" is itself against the guidelines, and will get you reported - this also will reduce your trust for reporting the problem.

Asking this question will quite probably have got you external help with dealing with this situation, but reporters are not going to be selective about which violations they deal with.

Yahzmin ♥♥ 4ever · Answer

Your only option beyond what you already do is direct contact with staff. Gather links to examples, and links to present and past accounts if possible. Send them to staff with a brief explanation of the continued abuse and hope they not only suspend him but flag the IP for immediate suspension of all new accounts. Staff email is y_answrs_team@yahoo.com (missing E is deliberate).

? · Answer

If the police will do anything about it I guess call the police, reporting his posts won't do anything, he's going to keep coming back and I don't think yahoo answers IP bans. Though HOW people are still able to make new accounts everyday when you need a phone verification to make a new one idk.

Fox · Answer

then report his offensive posts and report the account to Y!A staff

y_answrs_team@yahoo.com

...complaining to random people online does nothing

Anonymous · Answer

Yahoo is the only one that can do anything about it and they will not.   Welcome to the age of the internet, not always a good thing.  Our privacy has gone out of the window

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Obsessive Troll problem?

5 Answers