While user names with troll in them provide a handy guide as to which users to ignore or deprecate, they consitute an underclass of despised users with kick me written all over them. However like all users they are entitled to respect. A schizophrenic situation.
Viewed in their most favorable light trolls as a group consititute a faction with only the most nebulous viewpoint. A division promising conflict but not resolution of issues.
Fred
From: Mark Richards marich712000@yahoo.com Reply-To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Date: Thu, 6 May 2004 20:29:09 -0700 (PDT) To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] On trolls, usenet and Wikipedia
Well, I'm not advocating for the rights to troll (I don't think vandalism has anything to do with this, since its already covered) - I'm just saying that the current way of dealing with trolling isn't very effective.
Ignoring things that are not vandalism or malicious article edits might be better than providing fertile ground for more trolling. The username issue is the biggest one of concern to me, I think that we're setting ourselves up for a whole new round of trolling over 'if admins can ban users with 'troll' in their name, what other names can I get away with'. By just ignoring these usernames (unless they are attacks on users, genuinely offensive etc) this game would not start.
Mark
--- Rick giantsrick13@yahoo.com wrote:
Unfortunately, there are far too many people on Wikipedia (most of whom do little actual editing of articles) who are more concerned about giving the trolls the right to troll and vandalize, and will attack and try to get banned those of us actually out to make an Encyclopedia instead of a trollopedia.
RickK
Mark Richards marich712000@yahoo.com wrote: Hang on a second, I thought vandals were easy to deal with? Revert, ban if necessary, done. The problem is users who have not vandalised anything, but seek to engage in endlessly convoluted arguments with anyone who will play. Unfortunately, if you play, you have lost already. If the troll vandalises, ban him immediately. If not, don't feed him. Mark
--- Christopher Mahan wrote:
On Usenet or any of many online forums, trolls can be ignored (not fed) and they mostly disappear. On wikipedia, they escalate their vandalism, learning ever-sneakier ways of damaging articles that people have spend countless hours of their
precious
time crafting.
Ignoring a troll on wikipedia is the worst thing
you
could possibly do, since it will bite you in the proverbial bum.
===== Christopher Mahan chris_mahan@yahoo.com 818.943.1850 cell http://www.christophermahan.com/
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