[WikiEN-l] Troll, troll, troll

[Flame Viper]

The definition of "troll" in Wikipedia is a fairly broad one.
The definition itself of "intentionally aggravating" is itself plastic and can be interpreted differently. For example, I might consider someone a troll if they continually ask me simple questions. They might be doing it on purpose, or they may well be asking questions that they believed to be legitimate.

The problem here is that the word "troll" is being thrown around like a dodgeball made of cement. It's essentially an insult, and worse, it will degrade the reputation of whoever was accused. However, it is not considered a personal attack as long as it is indirect ("Flameviper is trolling" as opposed to "Flameviper is a troll"), and even then, calling someone a troll in their block summary is still OK.

But everybody's definition of "troll" is different. For example:

Bob is a bold editor who likes to make broad sweeping changes to articles and discuss them later if there's a problem. George is more cautious and tends to ask for consensus on talk pages before making edits.

Bob makes a broad formatting change on [[Choline]], and George (who is watchlisting that page) freaks out and reverts. Bob, of course, doesn't get why and reverts to his version. George tries to start a discussion with Bob, and Bob sees George as a nitpicking control freak who wants to go over every grammar change. George, on the other hand, sees Bob as an inconsiderate, crude person who blindly stumbles through massive changes.

To either editor, the other could be considered a "troll", and what will likely happen is this: Bob, wanting to get this crap over with, starts "attacking" George's carefulness on the talk page ("It's a wiki, see WP:BOLD and stop obsessing"), George feels hurt by this even though it wasn't intended that way, and the discussion degenerates into a flamewar. Immediately, George unsheathes the master insult and calls Bob a TROLL. All hell breaks loose, Bob gets blocked for massive disruption, and everyone loses.

The problem here is that different people have different opinions and different methods of doing things. Somebody who prefers to get to the point and be blunt with people could be seen as crude and disruptive, and even though they're being perfectly honest, would be in trouble for aggravation.

I might think you're a jerk, you might think I'm a jerk, but the fact is that people get aggravated. Just because you don't like someone's opinions or style doesn't mean that they're being that way just to annoy you; it's just the way they are.

And if they aren't doing anything wrong, there's no reason to brand other people as troublemakers when they're trying to do something differently from you.

I came to this website to write an encyclopedia, damn it, not engage in petty flamewars and try to sugar-coat everything I said so I didn't get blocked for trolling and disruption.

       
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