[Wikipedia-l] The t-word

Wed Apr 10 00:08:39 UTC 2002

> I think that the word "troll" is very overused.  To my way of
> thinking, it refers to a person who is "trolling" as a joke or
> something.  Sincere people with strange ideas are not trolls.  Even
> sincere people who are hostile, argumentative, uncooperative are not
> trolls.  A troll is _insincere_, that is, they say things only for the
> shock value, only for the purpose of upsetting people.

Agreed. I think the word is slung around a little too freely.

1. The Cunctator is not a troll. He sincerely cares about the project and has contributed a lot of valuable material, including our current logo. He is also a shit-disturber (I say that with some affection) and got into a personal feud with Larry Sanger. That doesn't make him a troll.

2. Mirwin is not a troll. He came into Wikipedia and, like many newcommers, brought up what he considered to be major issues, but most people disagreed with his assessments. He has some unusual ideas, has a rather rambling style of expressing himself, and seems to be quite fond of the idea of forking the project, but I haven't seen him do any intentional trolling.

3. I'm not sure whether 24 means to troll or not. He has been downright prolific on the meta, pumping out his ideas on what he sees as the major problems of Wikipedia, and the possible solutions. He seems intelligent, but very narrowly focused, and desires to change the basic nature of Wikipedia. He ignores community standards, and gets upset that we even call ourselves a community. He also has extensive insults for people that don't want to play his game by his rules. Strange? Yes. Troll? Not sure. Ban him? No way. It would set a dangerous precident, and wouldn't be very effective anyway. It's trivial to alter one's apparent IP address over the web.

-- Stephen G.
-- 

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