Guardian Tor wrote:
1. The Cunctator is not a troll. He sincerely cares
about the
project and has contributed a lot of valuable material, including our
current logo. He is also a shit-disturber (I say that with some
affection) and got into a personal feud with Larry Sanger. That
doesn't make him a troll.
I agree.
2. Mirwin is not a troll. He came into Wikipedia and,
like many
newcommers, brought up what he considered to be major issues, but most
people disagreed with his assessments. He has some unusual ideas, has
a rather rambling style of expressing himself, and seems to be quite
fond of the idea of forking the project, but I haven't seen him do any
intentional trolling.
I missed all of this, so I know little about him. I emailed him this
morning asking some questions -- he voiced some concern about the NPOV
policy, but I don't know what his concerns are, exactly.
3. I'm not sure whether 24 means to troll or not.
He has been
downright prolific on the meta, pumping out his ideas on what he sees
as the major problems of Wikipedia, and the possible solutions. He
seems intelligent, but very narrowly focused, and desires to change
the basic nature of Wikipedia. He ignores community standards, and
gets upset that we even call ourselves a community. He also has
extensive insults for people that don't want to play his game by his
rules. Strange? Yes. Troll? Not sure. Ban him? No way. It would set a
dangerous precident, and wouldn't be very effective anyway. It's
trivial to alter one's apparent IP address over the web.
Right, well, there's a problem we will face someday, if not now. What
happens when someone comes in with bad intentions and is relentless
with bad edits? If we don't ban, we just give up which is obviously
not right. The ultimate goal is the NPOV encyclopedia -- the openness
is a tool to that end. But if we do ban, we perhaps only provoke
someone even MORE, someone who would have gotten bored sooner rather
than later.
24 keeps saying that he's not sure if it's worth contributing. Maybe
he'll decide that it isn't. Maybe he'll decide that we're very
insistent on producing something that the 3 billionth reader will not
like, as he's fond of saying. He speaks for the Great Apes, he says,
and they surely will find our project uninteresting.
He revels in his anonymity, but I know who he is. Many people are
ill-mannered on the net who are perfectly nice when contacted by some
other means. Maybe I should call him on the phone.
--Jimbo