[WikiEN-l] On trolls, usenet and Wikipedia

Fri May 7 03:43:08 UTC 2004

To my knowledge, admins are not banning people merely for having
the name 'troll'.  J. R. R. Trollkien, despite being a pain in the
neck, has been around for a few weeks now, right?

--Jimbo

Mark Richards wrote:

> 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 at 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 at 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 at yahoo.com
> > > 818.943.1850 cell
> > > http://www.christophermahan.com/
> > > 
> > > 
> > > 
> > > 
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