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A concern troll is a person who participates in a debate posing as an actual or potential ally who simply has some concerns they need answered before they will ally themselves with a cause. In reality they are a critic. Concern trolling in geek feminism communities can result in continual reversion to Feminism 101 discussions in attempts to appease the troll's concerns, frustrating attempts at more serious discussion. Concern trolls are not always self-aware, they may also view themselves as potential allies who have just, oddly, never met a feminist opinion they liked.

Concern trolls can be identified primarily because they will retreat from, rather than engage with or be convinced by, answers to the questions they pose. They may repeatedly ask a certain question in feminist discussions without ever absorbing or replying to answers from previous discussions. They will often back into typical anti-feminist arguments, such as expressing concern that an argument is too "extreme" or a feminist too "strident" or even "hysterical". Another common tactic is insisting that some subjects are more important than others, for example, that media depictions of women shouldn't be criticised while violence against women continues.

Concern trolling is frequently banned in feminist communities.

Concern troll tactics

Examples

  • Martin Krafft regularly responds to geek feminist blog posts, and has posted on this wiki, as a concern troll. He says that: "I think women and men should have the same opportunities, and I think that the IT world (among others) still has some ways to go to make that happen." However, "The geek feminism wiki makes me pretty uneasy, and feels like someone is tying a rope to the past and present to make it harder to move forward. Under the assumption that most people would like to move forward towards an equal-opportunity community, how does keeping meticulous track of all the problems of the past and present help?"
  • Aoirthoir An Broc, born as Joseph James Frantz, is a more malicious type of concern troll; he pretends to engage with people on in discussions on gender issues in FOSS such as here, while professing elsewhere that "women are shit programmers and lazy as fuck".