YNOT – The adult internet is packed with independent entrepreneurs. Some of these individuals are backed by companies with capital and resources, while others are working for themselves and hoping to strike gold with just the right combination of adult websites and clever marketing. Regardless of your classification, if you’re an online marketer, then the chances are it would be hard for you to pass up the opportunity for some free publicity, which is something industry message boards certainly can provide.If you plan to engage the forums however, it’s important that you at least have some idea what you’re up against. Not all message boards are the same, and some of the most popular boards are, in fact, crawling with trolls.

In classic children’s stories, a troll often lurks under a bridge where he can’t be seen, only to jump out as the hero tries to cross. On the internet, however, a troll is someone who ambushes conversations on forums or other means of online communication. Trolls use inflammatory rhetoric designed to disrupt the conversation and lure innocent participants off topic and into an emotional response.

If you’re a reasonable person, your first reaction may be something like this: “Surely people have better things to do with their time.” Sadly, many do not. People troll for a variety of reasons. Sometimes the goal is to damage a reputation or a company’s means of competing in business. Other times trolls just get a kick out of watching people respond to their bait with an earnest attempt at defense.

If a troll gets you screaming mad, you can bet he’s laughing his troll butt off on the other side of the screen.

Avoiding trolls isn’t always as easy as it might seem. If you post on a public message board, and if that board does not moderate discussions to guard against trolls (few do), then you have no control over your own threads. Let’s say you start a thread to announce your latest website launch…. What’s to stop someone from adding comments about how bad your website sucks just for the sake of trying to embarrass you? Nothing. That’s free speech, online right?

But if you feel the person’s comments are unfair, designed only to humiliate you or damage your reputation, can you really avoid responding?

Once you respond, the troll has won. He has pulled you off-topic and into a defensive response. Your thread had been hijacked and turned negative, and you’re defending against possibly disingenuous accusations.

If you don’t respond, the troll still gets the pleasure of knowing he has planted some seeds of doubt in the minds of others who are evaluating your reputation, your products and services, and your company. And he gets to plant those doubts without so much as a peep in defense.

If the internet were comparable to the real world, trolling would come at the expense of the troll’s reputation. After all, if a troll convinces only 30 percent of the people to doubt your integrity, the 70 percent he did not convince might now think less of the troll himself. In other words, people don’t often troll in real life because it can backfire and harm them instead of their target. On the internet, however, this deterrent does not always work.

The problem with the internet is that many message boards either allow anonymous posters or don’t completely verify posters. This means trolls may have accounts that do not identify who they are, what companies they represent, etc. In this way, trolls benefit from virtual anonymity, allowing them to say just about anything they want to say without risk of a backfire. They harm you on some level but suffer no damage to their own reputations. It’s cowardly, but trolls don’t care.

So what’s the solution to all of this? There isn’t one really, but you need to come up with an approach to message boards that fits your comfort zone.

If you don’t have a lot to lose and you enjoy getting a lot of attention, negative or otherwise, then you have little to worry about. Feed the trolls! Remember, though, that if your reputation becomes synonymous with “hothead who’s always engaged in pissing matches on message boards,” then you can expect to be haunted by an unflattering perception later on when you do have something to lose. Do you want conversations you may later regret to be found by a possible future employer or business partner?

Probably the best approach is to simply ignore trolls and respond only to people who put their own names and company reputations behind their posts. You also should remember to take with a grain of salt any attacks you see trolls making against other people. If they can’t or won’t put their name and company behind their comments, then the person making the comments is probably of questionable character. It can be frustrating to be forced to ignore trolls, but when they get no reaction, they often will move on to easier targets. Ignoring them is often the best of several unpleasant options.

If you choose to address a troll, don’t make an emotional response. Message boards usually are very public, and what you say today in a moment of anger may look really, really bad five years from now. We’ve all made that mistake, so don’t be too hard on yourself. Instead, learn from the slip-up. Reputation is important in any business environment.

Another option, if you really don’t like sparring with trolls or ignoring them, is to remember that not all message boards are the same. Some are intolerant of trolls and enforce behavior rules, while others have a more Wild West atmosphere. You might simply avoid the troll havens and stick to the forums where conversation is professional in a more traditional way.

Finally, if a troll really gets your goat, you can try creating your own anonymous account and striking back. The tactic may be a complete waste of your time, but it also might feel pretty good. Just don’t get caught! Finding yourself “outed” in public could be a little bit awkward, you have to admit.