[WikiEN-l] Best approach for dealing with... er... cranks?

[tarquin]

Chas Brown wrote:

>How do those on list suggest dealing with contributors like FWappler? 
>
>...
>
>He's polite, he's not a vandal, but (for those not mathematically
>minded) he's really not contributing here. Although he's using
>mathematical language, the result is basically gibberish.
>
>Two thoughts come to mind:
>
>(1) Ever terser reverts.
>(2) Wait a few days, and ''then'' revert.
>
>  
>
I asked this list pretty much the same question, also about Fwappler, 
some months ago.
IIRC we concluded at the time that he was either:
* slightly strange
* a mental patient
* on a different plane of reality
* or a very, very original troll.

Every question you put to Fwappler gets an ever-more cryptic reply, with 
that REALLY annoying way of writing "as to: [quoted fragments]", and 
making daft links to irrelevant pages.
on the other hand, s/he has made useful edits (though still a little 
strange sometimes).

if this were a real-life volunteer project, Fwappler would be the old 
lady who smells of cat pee, who we frequently don't understand, who we 
have to clean up after she's gone, but can't bring ourselves to tell to 
get lost ;-)

>  
>