[WikiEN-l] mad trolls

[Jimmy Wales]

sannse wrote:
> This is just a general grump, but I do wish people would stop implying that
> our more controversial users are mentally ill.

[...]

> Not every troll has
> some deep-seated psychological reason for their difficult nature - sometimes
> people are just jerks.
> 
> I'm not trying to make a big issue of this - just keep it in mind will ya :)

I think that's mostly right.  In most cases, too, it's important to
remember that it's behaviors that we care about directly, not motives
or causes.

However, some thoughts about motives or causes can be helpful, of
course, in helping to predict what someone might do.  If someone is
doing something jerky, but is a newbie, we might speculate positively
that perhaps they just need to learn our social norms.  If someone has
behaved very well for a long time, but then does something odd and
out-of-character, we can judge that most likely it was just a single
poor decision, not something to worry about.

And if someone writes intelligently but with an edge of madness, like
the Unabomber, and has been banned multiple times, and says things
that make no rational sense with an implied threat of violence, then
we should note that as well.

--Jimbo