I run a small forum that's been around for nearly 10 years now and I've found that over the years when we do get someone that's absolutely insane or trollish the best thing to do isn't to outright ban them, but to give them an area away from the rest of the group where they can spout off. This is similar to the advice in the article, I suppose.<p>The implementation of which was creating a 'Purgatory' forum where there was absolutely no censorship and if people crossed the line too often they were restricted to that forum (though anybody else who wanted to actually engage them could also post). It pissed them off, but in almost all cases, instead of registering new accounts and flooding the main forum with posts (as often happens with banned trolls), they just spout off for a couple days at most, and then either calm down or fuck off of their own accord.