[Wikipedia-l] Trolls and other nuisances

[Larry Sanger]

I'm just now visiting the recent archive of Wikipedia-L:

http://www.nupedia.com/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2002-April/001879.html

I'd like to add my $0.02 on a number of issues that have been raised.
This is important, I think, because we've got to pull together against
elements who are, to put it nicely, wasting our time.  To pull together,
though, we've got to get very clear on what "trolls" are or might be, and
develop a robust, *well-thought-out*, *reasonable* idea of what to do when
the trolls attack.  (As they will continue to do as long as Wikipedia is
open for business.)  Each of us has to come to his or her own conclusions
on the issue; but the greater degree of consensus we can achieve (*for*
neutrality and productivity and *against* bias and kookiness), the more
effective we will be in showing trolls the door.  (Without, ideally,
actually kicking them out the door.)

First, I really don't like the idea of putting Meta-Wikipedia comments on
the Recent Changes page.  That was the whole point of having the
Meta-Wikipedia, if you'll remember: meta-discussion (partly in the form of
trolling by certain members of the project, along with responses to them),
had become such a serious problem, eating up the resources of the project,
that we wanted to move the wrangling away from the article production.
Please, let's keep it that way.

For historical perspective, see:

http://meta.wikipedia.com/wiki.phtml?title=Moving+commentary+out+of+Wikipedia

Next--I think Manning's post, "Some 24 comments and the cabal," was a
bullseye that said a bunch of stuff that sorely needed to be said:

http://www.nupedia.com/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2002-April/001807.html

To reiterate in my own words: our resident trolls, bless their twisted
hearts, have harped over and over again about issues of the politics of
Wikipedia, either stating or not-so-subtlely implying that some element of
the leadership of the community is pulling the wool over the eyes of the
community, that someone is usurping power.  As Manning says, the main
authority behind the project rests with the community itself, and
particularly with the people who accept the basic defining features of the
community.  Insinuations that a cabal, other than a "cabal" in this sense,
is taking control and foisting its views on the rest of us are only so
much guff, very possibly motivated by a dislike for the neutrality policy,
or so it seems to me.

I agree that "troll" is sometimes falsely used to mean little more
specific than "annoying person," which is way too broad.  Originally (or
so the etymology and received wisdom has it), I think the term referred to
people who were *merely* trying to get a rise out of newbies, with no
deeper agenda than that.  There are relatively few trolls in that sense,
and it's entirely plausible that The Cunctator, 24, and Michael Irwin
aren't trolls in *that* sense.

But I think there *is* a broader and much more useful sense of the term,
that is very often used by perfectly net-savvy people--at least as often
as the original use, and probably more often.  This is how "troll" is used
in this page (#1 result for the "Internet troll" Google search):

http://members.aol.com/intwg/trolls.htm

According to this broader sense, trolls *thrive on being the center and
focus of controversy*.  It is, seemingly, what they live for, at least
when it comes to Internet forums.  Perhaps most importantly, **they do not
respond to reasonable criticism** in the way that most ordinary
intelligent people do; they treat dialectic as *merely* a game.  They
don't seem to realize or care that they are speaking to *people* with all
that that entails.

Reasonable discussants are willing to stop and acknowledge that others can
and do have different points of view.  Trolls, in this slightly broader
sense, almost always take personal offense that other people disagree with
them, so that when others express their disagreement, the trolls lash out
in hostile, abusive, and often strangely cryptic ways (as if they were
mainly speaking to themselves).

Most reasonable people go out of their way not to give offense to others
(except, perhaps, when it's warranted); trolls go out of their way to
think up clever ways to give offense to people who never did them any
harm.

Reasonable people (indeed, this might a basic criterion of being a
reasonable person) recognize and accept that, in a community, there must
be general standards of protocol, and they make a point of discovering
what those standards are and respecting them.  If they criticize basic,
well-accepted community standards, they realize that they are taking what
might be received as a sort of extreme action, and they will word their
criticisms with appropriate delicacy and diplomacy.  Trolls, by contrast
(and here again I'm speaking in the slightly broader sense), seem to take
*delight* in not only flouting basic standards of protocol, but
criticizing them openly and rudely as well.  Any old hand on Usenet or
mailing lists knows this all too well.  When called to task by a moderator
or administrator, the troll often will attack the moderator or
administrator, complain that his feelings are being hurt, and object that
his freedom of speech has been infringed.  No reasonable person would
behave this way; he would instead stop and ask himself, "What have I done
wrong?" or instead say, "Oh, I see; these people aren't playing by the
rules I want to play by.  I'll find a different group of people to play
with."

I can't really put it any better than what the above-referenced URL has:
"Trolls are utterly impervious to criticism (constructive or otherwise).
You cannot negotiate with them; you cannot cause them to feel shame or
compassion; you cannot reason with them.  They cannot be made to feel
remorse.  For some reason, trolls do not feel they are bound by the rules
of courtesy or social responsibility."

Now, there's a problem in *defining* "troll," even in this broad sense,
for the wiki context.  Trolling up till now has been the abuse of Internet
*discussion*.  But Wikipedia isn't a discussion; it's a content-creation
project.  Of course, part of the trolling we've seen has been on talk page
discussions, but another large part of it (depending on the troll) has
been in article posting, viz., posting biased and kooky stuff in open
defiance of policy.  I think this is a perfectly acceptable, robust
application of the concept to a new sort of context, though.

There's also a special problem in *dealing* with trolls on Wikipedia (or
any wiki): whereas on an ordinary discussion forum, one can simply
killfile the miscreant, on Wikipedia, we can't.  Remember, we're actually
*doing something*.  We're building a resource.  The troll's disruptions
(in the form of totally and consciously biased, kooky, and otherwise
worthless repeated postings) can't be "killfiled."  Somebody has to go
around after the troll and actually clean up.  If nobody does, the biased,
kooky, worthless dross stays put; if it accumulates, Wikipedia's quality
and reputation is under some amount of threat (depending on how prolific
the troll is).

Given this, it might perhaps be better to apply the word "vandal" to
someone who posts really worthless stuff on Wikipedia.  But I would
distinguish vandals from trolls as follows.

Vandals are interested in getting mere infantile jollies in seeing people
temporarily shocked by usually toilet humor.

Trolls actually want to build (hostile) relationships with people in order
to abuse them more satisfyingly.  For more on the relationship between
trolling and abuse, the following is thought-provoking:

http://www.firelily.com/support/depression/trolls.html

I don't know how accurate the psychologizing is, but it's interesting
nonetheless.

So, as you can see, I do think that trolls exist on Wikipedia, and we
would do well to acknowledge this fact and respond appropriately.

Larry