Caution: Do Not Feed the Internet Trolls (Infographic)

We've all run into an Internet troll or two in our time. Or three. Maybe four.

We've probably also all engaged with at least one of them, forgetting the cardinal rule of the interwebs: Do NOT feed the trolls.

There are a large variety in the troll-dom, though, and not all are created equal. Some are mischief-makers, just trying to get a rise out of you. They may even agree with the point of view you're expressing. Their sole goal in life is to get you all wound up.

Others are more insidious - they want to actually do harm to a person, site, brand or whatever, and by engaging with them, you're helping them achieve their goals.

Whatever kind of troll you're dealing with, you're the one who's going to end up with a stomachache if you feed them. They'll be just peachy.

Of course, if you manage a website, trolls present a different sort of problem than if you're simply a user. The community looks to you to make sure the trolls don't overrun everything and make life generally miserable for all.

While you need to be proactive in shutting down the trolls, you also need to make sure that the person you're penalizing is, in fact, a troll, and not merely a community member having a bad day - or someone being reported as a troll BY a troll.

Yeah, it can get kind of complicated

Most social networks have built-in tools that enable community members to report posts or members as spam or disruptive.

Those tools are a great first step toward identifying those causing problems. So long as they're simple to use and the community knows about them, your users will be your first line of defense in keeping your site troll-free.

This infographic from Community 102 takes a deeper look at the problem of Internet trolls, as well as how best to battle them.