You should write a sociology of trolling Fred! I guess
I agree that 'troll' usernames are probably a flag
indicating disatisfaction with something, but there
has to be a way to funnel that into an opportunity to
express that, otherwise you just drive it into more
and more nefarious trolling.
I don't think I really approve of removing comments
(however inflamatory) from the request for review of
admin actions - let them stay there, let people have
their say, and archive it later. Its kind of a troll
ju-jitsu - let them post on discussion pages (as long
as it's not offensive etc), but ignore it, if there's
enough, shift it to a sub-page and ignore it.
Responding to it (even by reverting it) is playing
along, which is feeding the trolls.
I understand I hold a somewhat extreme view on this,
so feel free to ignore me, but I would love to get
agreement from everyone to try it for a week or so,
just to see...
Mark
--- Fred Bauder <fredbaud(a)ctelco.net> wrote:
While user names with troll in them provide a handy
guide as to which users
to ignore or deprecate, they consitute an underclass
of despised users with
kick me written all over them. However like all
users they are entitled to
respect. A schizophrenic situation.
Viewed in their most favorable light trolls as a
group consititute a faction
with only the most nebulous viewpoint. A division
promising conflict but not
resolution of issues.
Fred
From: Mark Richards
<marich712000(a)yahoo.com>
Reply-To: English Wikipedia
<wikien-l(a)Wikipedia.org>
Date: Thu, 6 May 2004 20:29:09 -0700 (PDT)
To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l(a)Wikipedia.org>
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] On trolls, usenet and
Wikipedia
Well, I'm not advocating for the rights to troll
(I
don't think vandalism has anything to do with
this,
since its already covered) - I'm just saying
that
the
current way of dealing with trolling isn't
very
effective.
Ignoring things that are not vandalism or
malicious
article edits might be better than providing
fertile
ground for more trolling. The username issue is
the
biggest one of concern to me, I think that
we're
setting ourselves up for a whole new round of
trolling
over 'if admins can ban users with
'troll' in
their
name, what other names can I get away with'.
By
just
ignoring these usernames (unless they are attacks
on
users, genuinely offensive etc) this game would
not
start.
Mark
--- Rick <giantsrick13(a)yahoo.com> wrote:
> Unfortunately, there are far too many people on
> Wikipedia (most of whom do little actual editing
of
> articles) who are more concerned about giving
the
> trolls the right to troll and vandalize, and will
> attack and try to get banned those of us actually
> out to make an Encyclopedia instead of a
> trollopedia.
>
> RickK
>
> Mark Richards <marich712000(a)yahoo.com> wrote:
> Hang on a second, I thought vandals were easy to
> deal
> with? Revert, ban if necessary, done. The problem
is
> users who have not vandalised anything, but
seek
to
> engage in endlessly convoluted arguments with
anyone
> who will play. Unfortunately, if you play,
you
have
> lost already.
> If the troll vandalises, ban him immediately. If
> not,
> don't feed him.
> Mark
>
> --- Christopher Mahan wrote:
>> On Usenet or any of many online forums, trolls
can
>> be ignored (not
>> fed) and they mostly disappear. On wikipedia,
they
>> escalate their
>> vandalism, learning ever-sneakier ways of
damaging
>> articles that
>> people have spend countless hours of their
> precious
>> time crafting.
>>
>> Ignoring a troll on wikipedia is the worst thing
> you
>> could possibly
>> do, since it will bite you in the proverbial
bum.
>>
>> =====
>> Christopher Mahan
>> chris_mahan(a)yahoo.com
>> 818.943.1850 cell
>>
http://www.christophermahan.com/
>>
>>
>>
>>
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