vera cruz is a troll - WikiEN-l

19 Jan 2003

I have decided not to deal with Vera Cruz, ceding to he she or it any
article he she or it wants to work on, on the grounds that life is too
short to waste fighting him her or it and then literally losing sleep
over afterwards.  He she or it is a pure troll, as anyone with eyes
can see.

Look at what he she or it has contributed to [[Talk:Isaac Asimov]],
dragging people into debates over pointless subjects, subtly shifting
ground from one tiny truism to another while everyone else fumes,
engaging in look-at-me-I'm-horrible ploys, and generally poisoning the
well.  So I don't want to drink from it.

Her his its latest triumph is to drive the earnest but hapless 172
from the [[New Imperialism]] article, which I had quit in frustration
several weeks back.  I only got into the article because I asked a
naive question as to why this imperialism was "new".  After much back
and forth with 172, tiresome but ultimately productive, I managed to
get a paragraph into the article that clarified what was new, which
172 promoted to the lead for the whole article.

Now I find a note in my talk page (and Tannin's) from 172 begging me
to get back and save the [[New Imperialism]] article from Vera
Cruz. 172 and Slrubenstein and Tannin have spent a great deal of
effort turning political guff about imperialism (much of it from 172)
into an NPOV article on the topic while Vera has slouched on the
sidelines, periodically reverting the whole article, including totally
neutral typographical fixes, and generally doing what he she or it
does best, roiling, confusing, annoying, enraging.

As much as I wish the article was better I will *not* step back in to
it because I have no facility, other than logic and committment, for
dealing with trolls, and that has been proven not to work.  

I'm not one for banning, but if Vera Cruz is Lir and Lir is banned,
then . . .

Tom Parmenter
Ortolan88