The gently approach for dealing with Trolls

In the project management subject we have been focusing on tips about managing communities and stuff related. We also have study certain jargon terms that are commonly used in the computers and internet culture, among which was mention the “troll” term. A troll is someone who posts inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community with the primary intent of provoking other users into a desired emotional response

So what the netiquettes rules usually say about dealing with trolls in mailing lists, IRC channels, forums and wikis is that you should ‘never feed the trolls’ in order to avoid let them get away with what they want. But I have came to found this thread that points to this article which suggests a new approach when the time of dealing with trolls comes.

Basically what they recommend is to do the following three steps:
1. To ask the troll what he means
2. To agree with him
3. Eventually negotiate a common ground

So for example if we were in a situation where a Django and Python fan goes into a Ruby on Rails forums and says something (whatever type of stuff against ruby on rails) just to start messing around with the rails community.

the response (following the prior three steps) should be like
1. “Why do you feel that Ruby on Rails is so bad? What of Rails framework you don’t like?”
2. “It’s completely fine prefering Phyton you know?, cause we are working on all these downsides rails already has. Still we would like to help you with any doubt about rails development”
3. Well there are always different frameworks for different developers manners, so you could try rails just a few days to see if it fits yours, if don’t then its perfectly ok. Even tough you can always ask us what you like

So after doing this probably the troll will calm down, but this also may vary because there are several types of people. So they recommend to repeat this procedure until the situation gets under control.