I think that the word "troll" is very overused. To my way of thinking, it refers to a person who is "trolling" as a joke or something. Sincere people with strange ideas are not trolls. Even sincere people who are hostile, argumentative, uncooperative are not trolls. A troll is _insincere_, that is, they say things only for the shock value, only for the purpose of upsetting people.
Agreed. I think the word is slung around a little too freely.
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.
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.
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.
-- Stephen G.
Guardian Tor wrote:
- 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.
- 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.
- 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
wikipedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org