[WikiEN-l] Re: Known Trolls

[Sheldon Rampton]

Peter Jaros wrote:

>One problem with bringing up a person's pre-Wikipedia history is that a
>reformed troll is likely to be, shall we say, tact-impaired.  Such a
>person is *more* likely to be falsely accused of trolling (remembering
>that trolling includes intent).  On the other hand, this history can
>greatly help arbitrators to decide how to deal with a user.  Many
>people are simply bad at garnering sympathy for their point; it's a
>skill not everyone has.  Simply accusing such people of trolling is
>likely to make matters worse and make the arbitrators' job harder.

The difference between being a troll or "tact-impaired" is minor 
enough that for most practical purposes it isn't worth considering.

Personally, I think Wikipedia should try to move away from deterrence 
strategies like bans, IP blocks and arbitration committees, and 
toward a reputation-management system like they have at Slashdot or 
Kuro5hin or eBay. A reputation-management system combines rewards 
with punishments. What's missing from Wikipedia's system is any kind 
of reward for GOOD behavior. Suppose, for example, we had a system 
where other users could rate our contributions, and the more positive 
your cumulative rating, the less scrutiny your edits are likely to 
receive from vandal-watchers. If we had that sort of system, we could 
focus monitoring for vandalism on people with low ratings. This would 
also give users an incentive to keep their ratings high so they 
wouldn't get hassled by others. Perhaps there could be other 
incentives as well, e.g., a high rating automatically makes you a 
sysop.

I think it would also be a good idea to set some kind of limit on the 
number of contributions accepted per day from each anonymous IP 
number -- a fairly small number, such as 5. Five contributions is 
enough for someone to get a feel for how Wikipedia works. After that, 
the software should tell them to register if they want to make 
further contributions. This way the Wikipedia would remain inviting 
to newbies but would add encouragement to enter the 
reputation-tracking system. It wouldn't entirely stop anonymous 
vandalism, but it would make it more difficult and would probably 
eliminate most of it.

--Sheldon Rampton