Consumerium development wiki - User contributions [en]

Talk:Trolls

2004-08-17T09:11:15Z

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* [[XML]] [[DTD]]s and [[Schema]]s are under [[GPL]]

:This much is true.

or [[LGPL]] (more licensing schemes are considered) - again viral so that no [[bad copy problem|bad copies]] or [[self-interested fork]]s can be created without us stopping them.

: What the ******* rubbish troll shit is this? Can you explain 142.177.X.X??[[User:Juxo|Juxo]] 14:29 Jun 19, 2003 (EEST)

::Only the [[User:MotherOfTrolls]] can explain [[User:142.177.X.X]]. Until then, this one issue can be explained (below). Trolls prefer however the term [[compost]] to "rubbish" or "shit", as their output is wholly [[organic]].

:::hum. shit is organic too, but it has a very negative connotation. It is untransformed waste, with microbial contamination perhaps. Not safe. A troll would not put that on your floor. Rubbish is somehow implying it is an end product, with no value whatsoever. Plastic bits. This troll would not put that on your floor. A compost is a co-product upon which a garden may flourish. It is a well-balanced medium upon which something can feed and grow. Remember, a [[waste]] may stop being an end-product if you decide so, and be renamed natural resource. This troll is there to spread compost everywhere on your floor

::::[[LGPL]] is the opposite of the feasible licensing model ([[proprietary]]), if stopping modified copies undesired by the original author is the goal.

::::Stop lying. It's not trolling, it's vandalism! [[User:Juxo|Juxo]] 16:02 Jun 24, 2003 (EEST)

----

The references to [[m:troll]] and [[w:Internet troll]] are a bit out of date - the article in [[Wikipedia]] has been improved, and the one in [[Meta-Wikipedia]] has been vandalized by the imposition of [[m:community point of view]]. Which sadly used to be something [[sysop power structure|they]] tried to work against and balance, but now try to enforce. If they get a trademark on the term "wikipedia" (Which should be generic) who knows what damage they'll do?

=== Troll ethics (GFDL by Sean B. Palmer, with replies) ===

What makes an introlligent person these days? [[Trolls]] contains some pertinent information, but consumerium has a brand of troll which, whilst not just limited to [[consumerium:itself]], is defying categorization under the current notion of "troll".

In a sense, the following rough criteria also provide a counterpoint to the highly optimistic [[Trolls]] article:

*'''Identitylessness'''. These trolls espouse identitylessness, but they fall extremely short for two reasons. 1) They are limited by the media within which they work, viz. language and online communication from IRC to wiki. 2) Some trolls are sloppy and haven't read The Hobbit: they come out during the daytime. As amusing and as ironic as this is, it's so counteracts the core troll criteria on [[Trolls]] that one wonders whether the trolling faction as a whole has some collective ego that it's unable to shake off, a pride in what it's doing, and a mischevious sense of wanting to effect so much of a change in the community that it's effectively becoming a part of it. Trolls are only human, after all.
*'''Cognitive dissonance'''. This cannot be over emphasized. The more intelligent the troll, the better it is at covering its tracks. The better it is at covering its tracks, aliasing, subverting its inherent persona, and using cognitive dissonance. It's hard work being a troll; the effort spent in employing all of these tactics is diverted from the core aim of being an efficient cultural unit.
*'''Refutation of opinion'''. If you seek a troll's identity, as one troll said you are making an "ontological death threat". Said troll would be advised to avoid the use of the word "ontological" in future; nontheless, trolls in a sense don't have an identity which can be discovered. Just as the meatball wiki community has no centre,

:''This is nonsense, [[Sunir Shah]] is that centre, and what's more, he probably claimed to be the first [[Lowest Troll]] anywhere. But broke troll protocol in many ways probably, including his support for [[outing]] which trolls do not do (it being a glass houses thing).''

and ESP has no centre, trolls have no center. It's a suffusion of opinions that makes a faction, and as troll:illusionated said (troll:rottentroll was much more careful, incidentally) even the concept of a faction is liquid.

:''So liquid that nobody will know what you're talking about in trying to differentiate the two. Liquidity begins by dissolving something solid, like identity. There's no [[interwiki identity standard]] so it's very hard to know what you're referring to with those names. [[Imposed pseudonym]]s or [[throwaway identity]] is remarkably bad as a way to deal with [[alleged and collective identity]].''

This is not anti-troll propoganda: very much to the contrary, it illustrates just how much of an impact trolls can have in so short a time. But it's also a warning to the introlligent community that organization and openness does have virtues,

:''but others pursue those - to be a troll is to break up institutions and seek closure and privacy and secrecy in very specific ways, not to oppose those concepts in general; Trolls do not oppose any concepts in general, that would make them guilty of [[theology]] or [[philosophy]]. And trolls are more like an [[ecology]] thing.''

and that whilst seeking the way of the troll can have many benefits, its dangers and disadvantages are legion.

:''Thus the [m:legion of trolls] which included a few notorious [[wiki witchhunt]]ers among its self-declared ranks, and others who ended up being confused for being trolls, etc., etc., etc. In a phrase: Yeah we know.''

If you display intelligent and creative thought whilst hiding your identity, people will becomed intrigued and try to establish your identity so that they don't lose a valuable source of information. It's not mallicious, it's natural. It's only mallicious when one tries to seek a troll's identity to destroy that troll, and note under refutation of opinion in the criteria above that this may be less of an issue than the troll collective seems at this moment to think.

:''but of course, once semi-reliable troll tracking exists, then, ANYONE who seeks to silence that troll may be able to do so. When the enemy actors much outnumber and outpower [[faction|friends]] or even [[Consumerium:We|those committed to fairness by some definition]], it is wise simply to count on people's natural curiosity and ability to use google and such to keep the "valuable source of information". Really all they need are [[verb phrase]]s and [[noun phrase]]s that are re-usable. Consider the [[Freemasons]]. They invented this technique, and [[secret handshake]] too probably. [[Reds]], [[Greens]], [[Golds]] usually recognize each other through a rhetoric, also.''

I have some questions, perhaps a troll would be able to answer. Even someone pretending to be a troll would do, since that would make them a troll. First: do trolls reveal their identities to one another?

:''Probably not [[beyond a reasonable doubt]]''

Second: what do trolls do about other trolls that turn bad?

:''Since the only real power they have is to pick someone out to be [[driven off by trolls]] somehow without lying about them, [[outing]] them, or breaking any laws, probably, that's what they do. But probably any [[Recyclopedia:faction]] has its own way of deciding how to do [[social exclusion]]. Presumably also access to [[proxy server]]s and such could be withdrawn from those who break whatever counts for "[[ethics]] on [[patroll]]."''

Third: given that no single troll can ever be aware of the direction of the entire troll movement, how do you correct mistakes as a faction?

:''In principle, that's a problem internal to the [[faction]], that is, one that [[trolls]] should discuss amongst themselves. It's also possible to say that "no single [[Reds|Red]] or Black bloccer can ever be aware of the direction of *that* whole movement", especially if it contains groups that have [[no operational contact]]. But even the [[Blues]] have this, with their corporate shields, and the [[Pinks]] with their [[rape shield]] laws. Everyone has their own ideal of [[privacy]].''

:''[[Greens]] could answer it simply: they employ metrics like [[nature's services]] and [[natural capital]] and [[biodiversity]] and even agree on some with [[Pinks]] like [[measuring well-being]].''

:''Finally, the word "[[ontological]]" is a fine old medieval word, and if one is trying to say that a [[metaphysics]] is being invoked while not crediting the idea of metaphysics itself, it's a pretty good word for that. Feel free to use it yourself. Also, feel free to claim to be particular trolls, and if trolls of that nesting range vaguely approve, you might well get a validation that you can use to hide your own identity.''

:''It's not perfect, but, to be perfect would require inventing something. And trolls try not to do that. Invention is next to damnation.''

It's true that trolls inspire paranoia amongst their opposites, but some are able to keep aloof and remain sympathisers, and what do you do then? What do trolls do when they get trolled?

:''some are able to keep aloof and remain sympathisers, and what do you do then? What do trolls do when they get trolled?" They troll back obviously. There was a fine example of this on [[ape mother]] that demonstrated many of the [[political virtues]] on both sides.''

Of course, you should ignore me; I'm just trolling here.

Meta-Wiki

2004-08-15T18:45:36Z

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'''Meta-Wikipedia''' ("[http://meta.wikipedia.org .org]") is a service devoted to discussing, debating, regulating and governing the [[Wikipedia]]. It has an ambiguous role relative to the [http://wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l wikipedia mailing list] since this also is supposedly for governing the project.

One way to understand the relationship is that the '''meta''' seems to support [[multiple point of view]] debate that does not easily fit in the [[neutral point of view]] straitjacket of Wikipedia itself, but which challenges the current prevailing power structure of the [[Wikipedia sysop community]]. This relatively small group makes editorial decisions, most notably, which users shall suffer [[IP bans]], and which IP numbers and identities are claimed to represent which users. At times this can be as complex as a judicial process.

But many decisions are simply too small in scale for any great discussion, and a responsible committees of a few people tend to work those out openly within the [[wiki process]] itself. This discussion in the '''meta''' may act as a kind of [[bureaucracy]] for the [[Wikipedia]], making many routine decisions, proposing means of responsible governance, etc., freeing the mailing list to act as a kind of [[ruling party]], handling exceptions and making "political" appointments.

The [http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page_style Main Page style] of the '''meta''' seems usually to reflect this current power relationship. Point of view of the [http://meta.wikipedia.org Main Page] tends to emphasize educating new users more when the 'bureaucrats' are in ascendance, and to recruiting for coding or proselytizing efforts more when the 'party' is in ascendance. These reach a sort of [[consensus]] and the Main Page remains stable for fairly long periods, then a new battle seems to break out and it gets substantially changed.

One way to reduce the [[disinformation]] potential of this political process would be to have many [http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page_alternate alternate Main Pages] each of which fully expressed one of many points of view, and no one of which would have to be deemed "correct" relative to the others. This would make it quite hard to hide critiques of [[editorial policy]] or exposure of [[bias]] by either the 'bureaucrats' or the 'ruling party' or indeed any faction.

However, it remains to be seen whether the reflexive use of a '''meta''' using the same technology as the main discourse can displace mailing lists or personal email correspondence and cliques as a governance tool. [[MeatballWiki]] attempts this transparency and reflexivity, using only an editor communicating via the [[wiki process]] itself, but it often simply devolves to a form of [[pro-technology propaganda]] or [[little tin god sysop]] game. If someone could make the [[wiki process]] govern the [[wiki process]] itself better, this would have implications for other wiki software users:

While these '''meta''' services might appear to be unimportant relative to more "real world" means of altering perception of governance matters, it may be of more than obvious importance if the [[wiki process]] catches on more generally. The [[Disinfopedia]] and [[Consumerium]] projects suggest that it may do so - other groups such as [[Greenpeace]] and [[Global Greens]] are considering the usefulness of such '''meta''' mechanisms for their global [[Open Campaigning]].

Accordingly, the various ways in which such mechanisms can be made more open and neutral may need to be monitored to help these projects evade disinformation campaigns by their many opponents in the [[military-industrial complex]], [[waste economy]], [[corporate globalization]] advocacy, and other "camps".

MeatballWiki

2004-08-15T18:40:09Z

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'''MeatballWiki''' is mostly a vanity [[online service]] of [[Sunir Shah]], seemingly devoted to:

*[[Pro-technology propaganda]] especially promoting the [[wiki process]] itself as some kind of [[silver bullet]] useful to solve every problem.
*The questionable [[virtual community]] thesis, now coming under severe attack from serious sociologists for de-emphasizing body and family elements of community, which always includes some degree of shared bodily [[risk]] or [[threat]] absent in an [[online service]].
*"[[Outing]]" or "[[shaming]]" opponents of the above theses after superficial attempts at engagement. Evidently Shah considers this opposition to be some kind of [[cyber threat]], wholly consistent with the thesis that somehow the idea is just as valuable as the person (thus threats to the idea must be considered the same as threats to the person). In one notable incident Shah interpreted a prediction of [[regime change]] at [[Wikipedia]] as some kind of bodily threat against persons, stating that view at [[Meta-Wikipedia]].

Although ''MeatballWiki''' attracts some serious participants, it's editorial policies manage to outdo [[Wikipedia]] in all three ideological biases, which is quite a feat.

Troll-friendly

2004-08-15T14:44:18Z

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A '''[[troll]]-friendly''' [[system]] or [[social software]]-based service (like the [[opinion wiki]] or this [[R&D wiki]]) assumes that [[built trust]] is very low, [[found trust]] is very high, and that [[grown trust]] will not happen unless a degree of [[politics as usual]] is allowed to apply in that system. ''This seems to be one motivation for proposing explicit [[faction]] support.''

For consumerium, this means [[sysop]]s should not push their luck or assume they are in charge of every [[faction]] or can resolve [[political dispute]] when people devote their lives to that in the real world and fail. In the long term it means that the [[Consumerium social club]] shouldn't over-ride [[consensus]] rules. It pays to push this process out to [[user-land]]. But it also means that the consensus has to form on the basis of strict [[due process]] that in the long term will support a reliable [[Consumerium buying signal]]. Low-integrity editors must be "driven off":

When someone has actively participated in building a [[sysop power structure]] that engages in [[ad hominem revert]], [[ad hominem delete]], [[witch-hunt]], [[inquisitor]], [[psychiatry]], [[libel]] and [[echo chamber]] tactics, under the same identity, they ''should'' be ''actively'' [[driven off by trolls]], and good riddance. If they wish this not to happen, they should make a new identity, and change their behaviour under the old one on any [[large public wiki]] where they are known for this inexcusable [[sysop vandalism]] - probably also giving up any position in the [[sysop power structure]] as well. If they do all this and become an advocate for true [[soft security]] at least in cases other than [[simple vandalism]], and become widely known for changing their spots, at that point, it is the obligation of any '''troll-friendly''' wiki to not only accept them back, but honour their conversion to the ways of trolls...

Usage of this phrase is very common:
*"We also have troll friendly proxies," - [http://brawl-hall.com/pages/index2.php brawl-hall.com]
*"VT is definitely a troll-friendly environment, but I make a habit
of using the report option when they get too far out of line." - [http://www.funmac.com/showthread.php?t=6971 re: VersionTracker]
*" Fanhome is a Troll friendly environment. ... Yet here you are. Like I said,
Fanhome is Troll-friendly." - [http://mb3.theinsiders.com/fvancouvercanucksfrm1.showMessageRange?topicID=2963.topic&start=21&stop=31 Vancouver Canucks "FanHome" site]

Some services say as explicit matter of policy that they are '''not troll-friendly'''. For instance, [[Wikipedia]] goes on [[wiki witchhunt]]s against presumed trolls who question its [[sysop power structure]]. The term troll-friendly is quite common:
*"We are not Troll friendly. Postings that have been placed on the boards to disrupt the flow of conversation will be removed..." - [http://www.cruise-addicts.com/forumguide.html CruiseAddicts.com forum guidelines]

Troll-friendly [[wiki management]] [[Wiki best practices|practices]] are designed to accomodate the [[New Troll point of view]] as much as possible. Rather than attempting to classify, categorize, restrict and challenge what [[trolls]] do, it attempts instead to engage them using [[political virtues]]:

*prudence,
*conciliation,
*compromise,
*variety,
*adaptability, and
*liveliness.

These democratic values were listed by [[Bernard Crick]] as alternatives to [[ideology]] or any "absolute-sounding [[ethic]]".

Very tellingly, "[[w:political vrtues|This article is a stub]]" at [[Wikipedia]]. This will not surprise anyone familiar with their [[GodKing]] or [[sysop power structure]], which lacks very considerably in these virtues.

Consumerium social club

2004-08-15T14:34:59Z

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'''Consumerium social club''' is just a name for all [[Consumerium developers]], [[Consumerium end users]], [[Consumerium researchers]] and [[Consumerium Governance Organization]] members who care to socialize in the [[opinion wiki]] or talk associated with [[content wiki]].

Unlike on [[Disinfopedia]] or [[Wikipedia]] this will not be allowed to interfere with [[sysop]] decisions and the [[Consumerium buying signal]] which affects real helpless living things - things with a real body, the life of real communities, both of which overrule foolish virtual/disposable chat clubs as a priority. However people get attached to such '''social club''s, that's fine, and they should have certain rights to continue their social relationships as a group even if these [[unequal power relationship]]s are damaging the mission of the forum they met each other in.

Renaming the so-called "community" a '''social club''' helps remind people that their concerns or annoyances, say with [[troll]]s, are very petty compared with what they are trying to protect by working together, i.e. at Consumerium. If this name is changed it should be to something even more obviously social and with no [[authoritative integrity]], like '''Consumerium dating service''' or '''Consumerium groupthinkers'''. It should never be called a "'''Consumerium Community'''" since it is this exact terminology which seems to trigger the worst sysop behaviour. Suddenly in order to keep themselves in charge they claim to "protect the community" by using tactics that would be only justified by protecting real bodies from real assaults. Annoying a sysop might lose you status in a social club - it does most certainly not imply that you have nothing to contribute to "the mission".

Consider: would you allow someone running a political meeting to literally gag someone, and physically throw them out of the building, using some technology that no one else in the room had, with no particular process or criteria that the rest of the room agreed with completely? If you did, would you expect that conversation in that room would thereafter reflect people's real views or tend towards [[groupthink]] just to end the pointless (obviously some things have already been decided) meeting sooner or avoid further exclusion? Yet this is the exact behaviour that almost all [[sysop]]s apply when they are given power.

The following exhange seems to contrast ''sysop'' and troll views of power:

This is also the exact behaviour of most meetings in the real world, there are just different socially accepted forms of enforcement.

::And ''very'' different limits and criteria for gaining and losing that power. An [[unequal power relationship]] is very dangerous. And typically you do not have several dozen people in a room of several hundred, all of whom are sufficiently bold, armed, and technologically enabled enough to remove dozens of others instantly on a whim, the way that you can in an online forum. So the level of unequal power is VERY DRASTICALLY DIFFERENT, which makes it not "the exact behavior". The kind of fascism that happens online couldn't happen in the real world, which is the point of the example: not just because it would not be tolerated in a meeting where the fate of the person involved, or anyone, was being decided, but because very few would volunteer to do it. SOME meetings in the real world are like this, like a courtroom where a judge might toss someone for contempt of court, and armed bailiffs might support that, but, still, there would not be dozens of masked bailiffs in the room who are never fired for anything they do, and judges who don't really pay much attention... so NO, "most meetings in the real world" do NOT work that way. And who it is "socially accepted" by, is those who remain in the room after the ejection: who may be intimidated against objecting, after seeing what just happened.

The reason the above analogy is not applicable to an online forum such as a wiki is that there is no physical room online, you can't see the people involved, and you have no direct means of communicating with them either.

::All of which makes them more vulnerable in some ways (easy to dispose of the bodies, since the bodies are elsewhere) and less vulnerable in others (potential for anonymity). Once there is [[outing]], everyone is actually more vulnerable, as the sysops will cooperate to keep themselves from being outed, but the users have no such ability to shut anyone up or keep information hidden.

::It is wrong to say "the above analogy is not applicable" if what is being discussed in the room has a serious impact on bodies, that is, the output of the meeting will affect someone's life or health or ability to protect either. If the meeting is like a "town hall" then that's exactly what's being decided - the analogy is not about ordinary meetings of private groups or corporations, it is about public purposes and claims of openness to public input. So there may not be "physical room" online, but there are real bodily and physical types of impacts, and those must be considered, even if they are not quite visible... likewise if you are deciding something that will affect the fate of children, you don't necessarily have to allow children in the room or let them speak, but you have to have some rational way of representing their interests or dangers.

In the real world, any group of two or three people have the power to physically throw someone out of a building, as a result, people are generally more civil, and more apt to follow the established rules. People can directly comminicate, fight, argue, and be asked to leave.

::Quite true: "Democracy is two guys dragging a third kicking and screaming to the gas chamber." However, the "group of two or three people" first of all MUST COOPERATE, as no one of them could do it alone, and ARE TAKING A RISK, as they could get hurt or sued or something if they are doing it for self-interest and not as a fair interpretation of what everyone concerned (not everyone in the room but all stakeholders) want or need done. And you're right that these requirements for cooperation and consideration of civility do result in some more elaborate procedures. None of which seem to exist in any online forum - maybe they're too new to have formal [[dispute resolution]] via [[faction]]s... "globally there is no alternative to multiparty representative democracy" - Les Campbell, the democracy institute. Sysops are not so wise to think of one, if it exists. People may dislike factions/parties but they're necessary.

::To "be asked to leave" happens all the time. And ignoring it happens all the time. For instance if Consumerium were publishing false information about some product, and violating its own license, and someone pointing that out were asked to leave, a good stakeholder who cared about Consumerium would not want them to OBEY, but FIGHT. So enabling that dissent really is what matters, and it's a prime reason to (a) have an independent board not involved in the daily decisions (b) have a [[Consumerium Governance Organization]] that follows some [[due process]], not an [[echo chamber]] and (c) require two or three sysops to agree on something that excludes someone, and make it relatively easy to undo (d) not let anyone have any post for as long as they want (e) allow those who object to bad processes to have a way to run for the job of fixing them all:

::No one can run for a [[GodKing]]'s job, so it's necessary to discredit him. If the job is politically important enough, like running an Empire, it might become necessary to do worse. Queen Rania of Jordan said it best "If he fails badly, all that a President loses is an election. If a King fails, he loses his life." So it is dangerous to the power-holder to take too much power - another good reason to distribute power with methods like [[disapproval voting]] or [[faction]]al competition to "legislate" compromise solutions.

Online it is a much more metaphysical experience, we are all imagining a place, this wiki, and we can push information into it with the power of our thought assisted by some technology. People are more apt to be disagreeable and rude because it is easier to do so and there is less consequence.

::That's ONE SOCIAL reason "because". Trolls would say: people are PERCEIVED AS disagreeable and rude because they are working in an inherently less rich medium, and, one where power struggles and [[power structure]] are slanted so heavily against them that they have to make a LOT of noise just to be heard amidst the din - after all, lots of people who could never be bothered to go to a live meeting on an issue will write whole essays about it online. So there's way more noise, and serious people who care have less power to get the point across. And are easier to ignore, making it a more competitive environment to debate in. In these circumstances, everyone becomes "disagreeable and rude"...

:: And what is "information"? It's someone's map of how to make future decisions. Those maps differ, and tough and tragic choices must be made by any collective about how to reconcile them to achieve the groups' collective mission. To dismiss all this as mere "rudeness" is simply called stupidity. It might even be the definition of stupidity.

::Ask yourself this: can a sysop be a vandal? If not there's no such thing as [[sysop vandalism]] - "the police are always right" - and no need for "judges" or a separate political hierarchy. In the real world, cops, politicians and judges are all chosen by different methods, and there's a strong [[due process]]. When there is no such process, people get killed in the debates:

::Anonymous trolls who were disagreeable with each other, and rude to King George III, eventually wrote a constitution and founded the United States - while fighting these trolls, the King and his sysops were of course at all times simply perceiving them as disagreeable, wrong, rude and evil. Were they?

::Same story for any revolution. Nelson Mandela was a troll. Gandhi too.

If people behaved in the real world how trolls behave online, they would be gagged and thrown out.

::And those who did this gagging and throwing-out would be killed. Power is resisted, and new power forms to resist it: that too is part of revolutions. Eventually a power balance is reached and a new etiquette that makes sense. It is this potential for physically violent feedback that keeps authority honest. And some would say, ONLY that.

::But on the face of it, this statement is also stupidity, as there is no way to "behave online". Behaving is physical, it is not about words. You would have to see body gestures and some indication of physical commitment to words to see "how trolls behave", and it is simply wrong to make the assertion you do.

::There is no such thing as "online behaviour" for the same reason that there is no such thing as "virtual community" - it is thoughts meeting, or words, not bodies. Molecules are not bits. Period. It is only valid to compare what goes on in net media to what goes on in the real world, when there is some clear impact of the net debate on the real world. And there very often is. Certainly in [[Consumerium]] it's very clear that the [[Consumerium buying signal]] is intended to have some impact on the real world and real bodies.

This is not to say the current sysop system is not without it's flaws, it simply remains to develop a better system.

::The solution to bad systems is not always "to develop a better system." That is the prejudice of a certain type of personality, to believe that.

::Sometimes the answer is to simply "better people in the same system", i.e. more active competition for power, and making it easier to lose power.

::Sometimes the answer is to realize that irreconcilable differences and incommensurable values clashes exist, and, make sure that any issue is heard out by genuinely uninterested parties without any agenda of their own to push, and no stake in any particular person being believed. But that too is "system".

::Another answer is to destroy or continually resist "the system" and expect a constant tension to keep power balances in flux, so they at least change a bit once in a while, and there is room for creative maneuver between the factions. Neal Stephenson is a champion of this approach. He is probably right about it.

See [[m:Internet Authority Disease]], [[m:power structure]] and [[m:Wikipedia sociology]] for more on this problem and how it plays out on [[Wikipedia]].

::[[Disinfopedia]] is actually a much worse example of a social club taking over a wiki that supposedly has a mission, which it executes rather badly - due in great part to its failing to acknowledge that different POVs will and must exist on the issues they debate. But their editorial work is generally not bad, and, they'll probably evolve, as they kick out sysops who are bad editors.

::[[Metaweb]] being run by a bunch of Neal Stephenson fans will likely do a good job on the technology, and, maybe, understand [[power structure]] better.

-----------

''Reference: [[m:Association_of_Wikipedians]] details how users can ally to counter [[sysop power structure]] and other formal structure. Perhaps as one way to achieve [[m:regime change]] and counter the oppressive "[[community point of view|community]]".

Consumerium social club

2004-08-15T14:34:16Z

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Repute

2004-08-15T13:18:19Z

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''This article is about repute in [[web service]] settings. The term reputation is usually assumed to be an equivalent, but has rather broader meaning.''

'''Repute''' is [[value]] associated with some [[identity]]. It is really an [[ethics]] concept that becomes visible as a measure of [[social capital]]. In general there is no such thing as bad repute, if the identity can be discarded or changed, as it can in almost all [[troll]] situations. If one has a repute one wishes to discard, one simply discards the identity and starts over. In [[wiki management]] this is called the [[right to vanish]], and is a key issue in both [[surveillance and governance]] of especially [[large public wiki]]s where there are very often many [[users in conflict]]. Lack of this "right" can lead to [[social exclusion]] in some circumstances.

Some think that because negative reputation is so hard to make stick to anyone, and because positive '''reputation''' enables so many abuses and is easily distorted or constructed by falsehood, the whole concept of reputation is negative and only enables those capable of promotion regardless of any [[value]]s. Others think that this can be managed but only when reputation itself is always negative, and no one can ever have a good reputation (i.e. reputation is expressed as zero or some negative number, a [[score]] on the [[identity]]). This kind of question is basic to [[social capital]] and [[trademark]] issues.

Reputation is basic to '''civilization''' and may be just as disputed a concept. Interestingly, while '''to civilize''' often gets critical attention as a process, as it might imply [[imperialism]] or [[colonialism]], "civilization" itself as a concept rarely or never does, and is almost always assumed to be a good thing. Likewise the word '''reputation''' is assumed good and evokes stability in ways that '''repute''' does not, the latter being associated with verbs like '''reputed''' which imply uncertainty. These are subtle but key differences:

Online, most '''reputation''' is [[factionally defined]], that is, a [[faction]] must exist in order to decide whether someone has high or low [[social capital]]. This is not something that [[Consumerium Services]] themselves can rely on very directly. Most [[trust model]]s have a more centralized model based on some degree of trust in a [[GodKing]], or perhaps measurable [[distrust]] levels. Our trust model should have no direct relationship to this idea.

Complicating this is disputes about the desirability of reputation itself. [[Troll]]s tend to believe that all reputation is bad, that having a "high" or "good" reputation just implies [[groupthink]] is in effect and that someone has taken advantage of it, and that it is more heroic to remain anonymous (but still traceable).

'''Ad hominem approval''' and [[permission-based model]]s are poor [[wiki management]] practice where edits by "trusted users of good '''reputation'''" go unexamined and thus might contain all kinds of errors.

:Ad hominem approval is often required to be accepted as a de facto practice in running [[large public wiki]]s. Because to keep a ''certain level'' of ''integrity'' withing the [[GFDL text corpus]] information coming in from previously unknown sources or authors must in practice be screened more carefully and systematically. This carries risks of [[systematic bias]] (process) or [[systemic bias]] (group affinity problems) but seems to be inevitable when only volunteer labour is relied on. There is never enough. It is not clear that a truly efficient pipeline to treat all contributions equally is possible. In [[political party]] circles this is also <s>a major problem.</s> often ignored as in [[politics as usual]]

Edits by new or untrusted users (see [[New Troll point of view]]) are often attacked without reason or for ideological reasons. This often leads to responses by [[troll organization]]s. Paradoxically, cooperation between the trolls, even on the [[patroll]] level, implies that there can be such a thing as positive repute. In all such systems, the new user necessarily lacks it, regardless of prior achievements anywhere else, or any credentials or skills.

:See also [[ad hominem delete]] and [[ad hominem revert]] which arise from the same mindset as the [[permission-based model]] requiring [[login]]s and [[consistent identity]]) which assume that repute is ''both'' positive and negative. - these poor practices generate [[sysop vandalism]] and aren't [[troll-friendly]] as they assume that "[[trolls]] are bad" (always) while "[[sysop]]s are good" (always). ''Ask [[Wikimedia]] "can a sysop be a vandal?" and watch their tiny brains fry.''

:Contrast [[wiki best practices]] like the [[Lowest Troll]] role, which makes the assumption that any [[conflicts between users]] necessarily lowers the '''repute''' of all involved - thus whoever is involved in all disputes by default is "Lowest", and there is no assumption of any positive repute at all.

See also: [[reputation politics]]

References:

*biography of James Sirdis
*Great Lakes Native American practices regarding gifting and anoynimity

Reds

2004-08-15T13:06:20Z

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'''Reds''' are a notable global [[faction]] of people with common values.

[[Consumerium:We|We]] hope the [[Wikipedia red faction]] will come and regroup here before taking another crack at the racists and fascists there!

''The rest of what is said here is controversial and intends to summarize how Reds will fit into the [[Consumerium social club]] and influence perhaps the [[Consumerium Governance Organization]]. Since Reds must define their own values and concerns, '''''no one who does not consider themselves a Red''''' should edit this article - what is here is only for illustration & discussion, and a copy of the original has been archived, so feel free to REDit this now.''

Used politically it will usually refer to anti-capitalists, specifically communists, who adopted this as their signal colour long ago. It stands for the blood shed by workers in the wage slavery system, and by soldiers in the wars started by capitalists for their own profit (yeah ok don't blame me I'm just the [[troll]]). They tend to really dislike workplace practices that exploit people like [[prison labour]] or [[child labour]] or [[slavery]], although they see these as part of capitalism. They often focus on specific individual media barons or corporate figures as 'the worst problem' at any point in time, and distrust even [[Greens]] and [[Pinks]] in many cases.

Accordingly, there will likely be a [[faction]] of Reds in the [[Consumerium social club]] and they very likely will insist on some [[factionally defined]] terms and [[standard label]]s for products produced by [[fair trade]] criteria.

They will probably ''not'' want their own [[Consortium license]] because of their ideological objections to [[patent]] and [[copyright]] law in general. They may advocate the [[Consumerium License]] just becoming the [[GPL]], or having no license at all as some kind of protest. When asked how specific [[bad copy problem]]s or [[self-interested fork problem]]s will be dealt with, and how [[worst cases]] and [[threats]] related to these will be averted, their answer will always be "these are all symptoms of capitalism - they will not go away until capitalism is smashed - so if these happen then just smash capitalism" etc. etc. rant rave.

They will also likely be quite active in the [[content wiki]] - Communists are great reporters of facts, since they suspect everyone and everything with any connection to capitalism, and will always find "a fly in the ointment". For this very reason, however, their analysis tends not to be as strong or objective as that of [[Greens]], and, they tend to be pretty damn boring too.

Don't let them do your marketing either. They hate marketing, maybe because they're so bad at it.

They are also good at [[municipal government]]. Many [[European cities]] are run by Reds, and these might be willing to use the [[Consumerium buying signal]] to make actual [[public sector buying decision]]s. That'd be great!

Best cases

2004-08-15T12:53:16Z

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'''Best cases''' are what we are here to achieve, and can only achieve if we overcome [[worst cases]]. So understand those first, then come back here and write what you think we can ultimately achieve. Not everyone will accept or believe in every best case as real, but if ''even one'' [[Consumerium:Contributor]] does, then it will be listed here and it should be respected. By definition, best cases qualifies as one of the [[strange articles]], because people do not always take each other's assessment of what is realy, seriously. Best cases should be things you actually believe in, even if others think they are fantasy. Their idea of "strangeness" is interesting as it means you have some convincing to do perhaps, but it does not make you "wrong".

Over time however our [[mutual cognition]] should converge, and those who believe overly optimistic things should be convinced to reclassify their most outrageous best cases as [[visions]]. That leaves here only what is possible realistically once we have avoided [[worst cases]]. A best case should almost always include some note of how we overcame opposition and inertia - it is obviously impractical to fantasize about what would happen if no one was out there against us. Such "march to inevitable victory" should go in [[visions]].
-----
'''''Ubiquitous Consumerium''''' - price checking devices also include signals from [[Consumerium]] so the [[ecological liability]] and [[social liability]] (separately) are reported to all consumers, and both are printed on the actual receipt you get at the checkout. Even if you don't care about the red-to-green ratio (as close to zero as possible), the other shoppers behind you might, as they see the colour of the light above your head. Social pressure pushes all [[developed nation]] shopping in our direction. Tourists avoid "red light districts" where most shopping is irresponsible, fearing they will get sick or attacked by the obviously irresponsible people. Shops specializing in red light goods get treated roughly as bad as those selling sex goods in the last century. It's profitable but it's more or less black market and you can't brag about the money you're making to your friends, and you lose some of those friends when they find out you're doing it.
----
[[Consumerium Credit]] catches on with a small elite group like [[Greens]] and [[Reds]] who use it as a status symbol that they are "out of the bank system". Since it's possible to track who actually obeys their [[individual buying criteria]] and who doesn't, there's a "hypocrisy index" for members of the [[Consumerium Buying Club]] (if you let it be published, then, you get some nice discounts) which tends to get revealed for politicians and most managers.

It never totally replaces other [[electronic payment services]] but tends to be influential in the [[standard]]s, especially [[privacy risk]] measures, that eventually make [[RFID]] acceptable, and limit [[cop]] access to [[user data]].
----

''Do any of the above seem unrealistic or impossible? Do you feel like deleting or toning it down? Don't, because someone believes in it. If you the author of it no longer believe in it, move it to [[visions]]. If you believe it is possible or likely, but unfortunate or bad, add a parallel case to [[worst cases]] emphasizing these aspects, and feel free to add some mention of those issues here, but with possible resolutions (keep best and worst separate even if they are exactly the same case - remember that these labels may well be [[factionally defined]] but we need to agree on at least a few basic ones to move forward). ''

(''see also [[visions]] for the more [[extreme standards|extreme]] case of this really working'')

Sysop power structure

2004-08-15T12:51:30Z

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A [[sysop]] is someone capable of employing [[technological escalation]] against their enemies, who they typically label "[[trolls]]".

The [[social network]] composed of the sysops "is an immature network that easily develops frightened, unlearned reactions then attempts to explain those reactions as having been caused by the object of its fear." - [[English Wikipedia User Bird]] on a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Bird Wikipedia talk page], who goes on to suppose that the sysops are "practicing aggressive behaviors learned from their primarily middle class backgrounds, including [[hazing]], [[peer pressure]] and [[class-hatred]]." Accordingly once authority (such as a [[GodKing]] is identified, all forms of hate and abuse that are not specifically prevented by that authority will be accepted. The [[power network]] that results is an unthinking copy of the [[power structure]] of the project as a whole, which can be altered only by [[wiki regime change]] ''which is indeed the goal of the [[Wikipedia Red Faction]].''

If there is a good '''sysop power structure''', and it is not clear that there is, it certainly it must compensate for the [[community point of view]] sysops tend to acquire. For the same reasons, police officers must follow formal rules about what cases to be involved in and not, and are not generally trusted to follow their own instincts about what measures to take against "offenders" of [[rules]]. This is no different on [[large public wiki]]s such as the [[Content Wiki]] and any [[Opinion Wiki]] facilities will become.

In other words, sysops simply can't be treated as neutral brokers in ''any'' power structure, democratic or despotic. They ''always'' add their own views, and this must be compensated for:

1. at the very least, sysops should/must be required to spend one-third of their time with no sysop status at all - this ensures that they must ask others for help at least some of the time, and, have some experience of end user status

2. arrangements where sysops do what "off-duty" sysops ask without question, must be detected and discouraged - say by permanent loss of status for both - it must be clear that everything done by any sysop is done on their own best judgement - any "just following orders" or "just doing as asked" excuses are contrary to a [[rule of law]].

3. EVERY [[revert]] or [[block IP]] action must ''cost'' something - there must be a finite pool of "credit" that a sysop ''uses up'' by taking these actions, and it must be ''depleted'' if the action is ultimately reversed and reversal stands. This is how judges are judged - by how likely their verdicts are to be reversed on appeal. This will discourage [[sysop vandalism]] extremely strongly and probably such a system could and should be extended to all users.

4. [[Faction]] declarations and agreement not to intervene in a [[political dispute]] involving an overtly opposed faction would be quite important - for example, if someone is anti-homosexual, they should not be counted on to serve as a neutral broker in a debate between an anti-homosexual and a homosexual. A [[conflict of values]] can only cause the final decision to be very disputable.

5. Also if one's own edits are involved, one cannot be assumed to be neutral or personally uninvolved. Every police or court system has [[rules]] to prevent such [[conflict of interest]].

7. The [[Lowest Troll]] terminology is to be preferred to any that elevates or seems to worship the final-resort sysop (the term [[GodKing]], like "[[politically correct]]", seems to provide a kind of authority to the stupid, even though it was originally intended to mock the level of power or pressure involved).

== Alternative position ==

On some wikis, the term [[sysops]] is equivalent to [[power structure]]. This is because the sysops manage (control) the wiki. On Consumerium, the [[sysops]] will be limited to [[cleaning]] duties, such as defending against [[vandalism]]. Hence, on Consumerium, it is hoped that [[sysops]] will not be a [[power structure]]. This will require [[eternal vigiliance]] and [[permanent revolution]] on behalf of the user base, and if a [[power structure]] begins to emerge, the users will take their content and move elsewhere.

Ape mother

2004-08-15T12:38:04Z

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New Troll point of view

2004-08-15T11:50:25Z

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The '''New [[Troll]] [[point of view]]''' is that the [[neutral point of view]] isn't '''neutral''', and has [[systemic bias]] that favors big factions and often opresses minorities, that can only be fixed by piling in [[legions of trolls]] of an [[dueling POV|competing view]] that claim to represent the '''true neutral point of view''', which is then naturally contested by those claiming to have the real [[NPOV]] due to '''might makes right''' mentality. It is a warlike view of what knowledge is - which is appropriate, as [[knowledge is power]] and that tempts to go to war for the spoils of ruling.

NTPOV assumes that existing rules and guidelines are wrong, because *someone* must assume that - else they never evolve.

Accordingly new [[trolls]] always assume that [[repute]] is either zero, or negative, and enter [[large public wiki]]s with the intent of working quietly until they are harassed and excluded by those who believe in positive repute, typically those in the [[sysop power structure]], or who believe that control or manipulation of technology, typically by [[developers]] is a necessary evil as no '''power structure''' is perfect but to avoid '''anarchy''' where there are [[potato]]s only for the thieves ( ie. vandals) '''a power structure is required to exist though optimally power-system is seldomly exercised in governance'''

The [[Lowest Troll]] is whatever troll consistently favours the '''New Troll''' over the most trusted longstanding user. Empowering this troll is the only way to prevent an [[insider culture]] from eventually skewing and biasing a [[large public wiki]], as there is thus no advantage whatsoever to those who suck up to power. This is the most [[troll-friendly]] of the [[wiki best practices]].

Typical classifications of the New Troll point of view include at least:

*"[[idiosyncratic]]" - the infamous [[google test]], which among other things excludes any discussion of [[theory of conduct]]
*"[[unverifiable]]" - rarely or never raised with respect to authority's views
*"[[unattributed]]" - extremely selectively applied, if a view is that stated without attribution by the [[mass media]], it will typically not be challenged.
*"[[crazy]]" or more [[psychiatry]] derived language
*"[[political]]" (what isn't)
*"[[POV]]" - yes, so what? [[Community point of view]] is still a POV, and that's what [[neutral point of view]] amounts to when one is done "enforcing" - what is not challenged by these particular users is "neutral" by definition...!??!
*...
----

== On this wiki's philosophy of trolling, and its relation to SoftSecurity ==
The http://develop.consumerium.org wiki contains an interesting and peculiar philosophy of trolling.

=== Definition of trolling ===
[[Trolling]] is defined [[Troll|in the article about "The Troll"]] along the lines of "...a term of abuse that is levelled both at genuinely problematic users and users with contentious but potentially legitimate views."

:"A wiki is by contrast troll-hostile and ruled by a GodKing if "deliberately disrupting work... in order to foster change, etc." can be unilaterally labelled as "problematic trolling" by one person or a small group, e.g. Jim Wales" (from [[Troll|here]])

:"In general internet terms, trolling can be described as making an undefended and polarised statement, to stimulate a large and reactive response. This annoys many people because it makes the culture unwelcoming to the newbie who is not used to seeing serious stuff mixed with '''[[w:BOFH|BOFH attitude or tongue-on-the-cheek style]]'''. However, what constitutes "undefended" is usually entirely up to the observer.

However, the entire [http://consumerium.org Consumerium project] is [[Troll|seen]] as one big '''"troll" against powerful corporations, governments and other real life power structures'''

==== Anonimity ====
:"One view of "real trolls" is that they are those who wilfully agree with Foucault and so reject both authorship and the association of authorship with fiction. To trolls, there is no such thing as an individual "troll", so the use of the term in the singular is confined to sysops." (from [[Troll|here]]).

==== Relationship to other definitions of trolling ====
The Consumerium school's definition of trolls is notably lacking an aspect of "lying to and messing with people for a joke at their expense". Compare to other sources:

:"Trolls are for fun. The object of recreational trolling is to sit back and laugh at all those gullible idiots that will believe *anything*." (from [http://www.urban75.com/Mag/troll.html here])

:"Trolling is a game about identity deception, albeit one that is played without the consent of most of the players. The troll attempts to pass as a legitimate participant, sharing the group's common interests and concerns; the newsgroups members, if they are cognizant of trolls and other identity deceptions, attempt to both distinguish real from trolling postings and, upon judging a poster a troll, make the offending poster leave the group." (Donath, 1999, p. 45)

Of course, maybe "the Consumerium school of pro-troll philosophy" is just one big joke at the expense of anyone who believes that it exists. There's certainly some evidence that some troll(s) on Consumerium feel this way (see [[142.177.X.X|bottom of this page]]).

=== Relationship to "soft security" ===
The Consumerium school shares with the "soft security" school a distaste of "hard security". Similar to the view of hardcore proponents of soft security, use of hard security is permitted when all other avenues are exhausted, but this is considered a semi-shameful failure on part of the person forced to wield it. [[Lowest Troll|On this page]] may be found a joking prescription for an apology if you have to use hard security.

The Consumerium school may be said to think along the same lines as the "soft security" school of thought, but to also think that "soft security" doesn't go far enough. Soft security (at least, some variants of it) feels that hard security ("technology solutions") should be replaced with "community solutions". Soft security advocates that a "community solution" include conflict resolution when possible, but resorts to social pressure and specifically to the community "closing ranks" against an offender when the conflict cannot be resolved. By contrast, the Consumerium school [[Sysop power structure|feels that]] social pressure and "closing ranks" is also abusive and should also be avoided.

=== Relativity/postmodernism ===
The underlying assumption behind this villification of people who most consider "community leaders" is that there is no way to objectively determine whether the target individual is actually harmful.

The Consumerium philosophy attempts to limit the power of these sorts of subjective value judgements. The only thing that is "real" is power. The Consumerium school assumes that the world will always be mostly divided into various factions, who are willing to do sneaky things (for example, to violate FairProcess to kick out someone they consider "obviously harmful") to win.

The Consumerium prescription is not, however, to "assume good faith" all the time, no matter what. They don't think that ''individuals'' should always be nice to others whom they consider offenders. Rather, the prescription is that checks in the underlying ''social system'' prevent the community from considering any individual as "offender" in an objective sense. This is to serve as a check against [[groupthink]].

For a specific proposal as to these sorts of checks, see [[Sysop power structure]]

=== Due process ===
In general, there is a strong emphasis on DueProcess as a check against abuse of power:

:"A wiki is troll-friendly when a friendly troll gets due process, and consideration of his "fiction" as a peer to other fiction, without regard to reputation. That is usually all they want. " (from [[Troll|here]]).

=== Contrast with "soft security" ===
So, the underlying assumption of the Consumerium school is that power is the only reality and people won't play fair when they deeply disagree. Their philosophy allows individuals to be nasty to each other (because there cannot exist any neutral arbiter who could stop them), but attempts to prevent "the community" from taking sides (because this might lead to [[groupthink]]).

The underlying assumption of "soft security" is "assume good faith", i.e that most individuals, if given a chance, will be fair even to others with whom they disagree. Under "soft security", individuals are supposed to be nice (& even polite) to others. Even if the community decides to reject an individual, individuals are supposed to be polite while carrying this out. But SoftSecurity gives "the collective" a blank check to consider some things, and some people, as beneficial and others as harmful.

Another difference between the two philosophies is their attitude towards disruption. Consider an individual who 'deliberately disrupts work... in order to foster change, etc.'

Soft security would say that the individual is working against the interests of the community, and that the community should protect itself. The Consumerium school says that disruption is sometimes necessary, and therefore almost all disruption be tolerated (since no one is in a position to say which disruption is good and which is bad).

:This section does not take into account the realities of responding to people breaking [[rules]] and [[guidelines]] that are here to advance cooperation between contributors by stating framework of how to advance things. Sometimes use of sysop power is required however unfortunate that may be from the New Troll point of view. --[[User:Juxo|Juxo]] 14:05, 14 Jul 2004 (EEST)

::These aren't "realities" these are assumptions about reality made by the existing [[sysop power structure]]. A '''NTPOV''' does not take this into account since a [[new troll]] does not know, and cannot be expected to know, these so-called "[[rules]]" and even if they do, they are not necessarily going to agree with them, some of them may be leftovers from a prior level of [[large public wiki]] evolution, etc.. So there is obviously a [[community point of view]] and a [[Sysop Vandal point of view]] (doing damage to the wiki in front of trolls in the hope that they will be disgusted at sysop morality and give up on helping the project at all) but these are, obviously, NOT the same as the '''New Troll point of view''' being described here.

::Like anything else, the "framework of how to advance things" is debatable, and the [[new troll]] might know more about it than any old troll or sysop who happens to have gotten to the wiki first and made friends. One must be open to new ideas about how to advance things, or criticisms from groups of people who are [[systemic bias|systematically excluded]]. The first time a tribesman from Borneo comments, he is a [[new troll]]. His comment might be "hey you people are really screwing up my forest by letting people get away with calling THIS [[sustainable forestry]]" while telling us the details. Of course all those who make comfortable livings in rich countries pushing paper and certifying lumber will call this person with actual first hand experience a "[[troll]]" and nitpick their English and try to argue that funds being spent to run a wide open wiki should instead be spent on their own personal expense account. All this is [[politics as usual]] or just [[bureaucracy]]. But there must be someone speaking up for that new troll from Borneo, and advancing his POV here.

=== Positive reputation considered evil ===
The Consumerium pro-troll philosophy [[Repute|holds that]] a system where individuals can acquire positive reputation is a bad idea and leads to power and hence to abuses of power. Incredibly (perhaps as a joke?) some within the Consumerium school apparently [[Repute|believe]] that reputation is useful, but only negative reputation, i.e. the best situation is where individuals can have bad reputations, but no one can ever have a good reputation.

One approach according to these lines [[Repute|seen on Consumerium]] is: "any conflicts between users necessarily lowers the repute of all involved - thus whoever is involved in all disputes by default is "Lowest", and there is no assumption of any positive repute at all." This explains their name of [[Lowest Troll]] for one kind of what others might call a "community leader"; someone who takes the time to make peace in the community, and, when necessary, defend against trolls.

=== How the host should behave ===
The Consumerium school has a particularly bad view of "sysops", what other might call "hosts". A bad sysop is what "soft security" would call a GodKing.

In "soft security", a arrogant host may be considered a GodKing, but for the most part only the use of "hard security" is thought to be a sin. By contrast, the Consumerium school faults any community leader for any abusive use of ''their positive reputation in the community''. "Abusive," though, is defined quite broadly, and encompasses any effort to rally the community against perceived harmful individuals or points of view.

By contrast, the [[Lowest Troll]] is the Consumerium model for good leadership. The [[Lowest Troll]] actively fights [[groupthink]] by favoring outsiders instead of reputable community members:

:"The Lowest Troll is whatever troll consistently favours the New Troll over the most trusted longstanding user. Empowering this troll is the only way to prevent an insider culture from eventually destroying a large public wiki, as..."

=== Token Foucault reference ===

As expected for a postmodernish philosophy, the philosophy of Foucault makes a [[Troll|confusing cameo]]:

:"The author does not precede the works; he is a certain functional principle by which, in our culture, one limits, excludes, chooses and impedes the free circulation of fiction." - Michel Foucault

=== Further reading ===
* [[Lowest Troll]]
* [[Soft security]]
* [[Troll]]
* [[Trolls]]
* [[Repute]]
* [[Driven off by trolls]]
* [[Friendly troll]]
* [[Trolling]]
* [[Sysop power structure]]
* [[Sysopism]]

Purpose

2004-08-15T11:44:11Z

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The best way to determine Consumerium's '''purpose''' is to gather what is said about that in its articles on more specific topics. That way, anyone who cares about some goal, principle, or understanding, can say there how it affects or should affect [[Consumerium:Itself]]. There are no "special articles" that "only trusted people" can edit. This is exactly how we propose also to evolve [[policy]].

Where it becomes clear that there is substantial resistance to some purpose, this can be reflected in [[what Consumerium is not]], but only after [[users in conflict]] have debated it extensively. In other words, neither purpose nor exclusions from purpose should be decided arbitrarily by any one "editor".

''See [[direct democracy]] for how issues are resolved if this bottom-up process needs to be accelerated, e.g. when decisions become urgent.''

SourceWatch

2004-08-15T11:28:52Z

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'''Disinfopedia''' is a [[large public wiki]] which is effectively a U.S. Democratic Party front. It is run by Sheldon Rampton and handpicked personal friends of his, such as "User:Maynard", who form a very autocratic [[sysop power structure]] with no accountability whatsoever. They simply do [[ad hominem delete]] and [[ad hominem revert]] by users they dislike, usually for knowing more about the subject than they do. It is not recommended.

On some US-specific public policy issues, it often has good [[content wiki]] type information with good [[validation]] of sources. Put an article there not here to criticize someone or some company doing [[propaganda]] like [[greenwash]], e.g. [[Gus Kouwenhoven]]. But expect it to be removed if it does not serve the current U. S. Democratic Party agenda, e.g. defeating Bush, denying that the [[Greens]] understand the issues and the solutions better, etc.

If you can clearly link the case to some anti-Bush position, it'll probably stick. But that doesn't mean much. Partisan wikis tend to be not trusted:

Disinfopedia is by no means accepting of either [[neutral point of view]] nor [[New Troll point of view]]. It is simply a vehicle of the individuals who run it, and its pretence to openness is simply to make attribution of sources for various of its pet positions, easier. This is one approach to [[wiki management]] but it's not ideal for anyone who wishes to actually challenge [[w:propaganda]].

Censoring most of the articles on [[cognitive dissonance]], [[information warfare]], [[pro-technology propaganda]], and muting technical issues with respect to the use of propaganda itself (which might cast [[MoveOn.org]] for instance in an unfavourable light), has given Disinfopedia a poor reputation for objectivity or for academic scholarship. There is however some good coverage of some specific debates in [[energy]], [[Islam]], [[nanotechnology]] and [[emergency response]] issues, most of which seems to have been written by anonymous [[trolls]].

http://disinfopedia.org

Dystopias

2004-08-15T10:17:19Z

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#REDIRECT [[threats]]

Utopias

2004-08-15T10:16:00Z

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#REDIRECT [[visions]]

Talk:Troll Timeline

2004-08-15T10:13:05Z

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this needs future planned events as well as past ones - also an official [[timeline]] not written by trolls would help, although trolls need their own to list events important to [[troll cult]]ure.
----

Suggest someone document historical events and decisions regarding [[Consumerium:Itself]]. Probably none should be really ratified as [[policy]], just the proposals and ideas noted, and links to them compiled here, for [[History of Consumerium]] and other such accountability purposes.

Unless history is documented, those who can reliably recount it have an edge. And this tends to put a [[clique]] or [[cabal]] in charge.

The same labeling convention can apply to events that we know will happen at some scheduled future time, events we plan, and proposals we need input on. The label thus never changes from the time we know about an event or decision timing, to the time we have to record what was done about it, or not. See [[TIPAESA]] for a detailed convention for all this.

Levers

2004-08-15T10:10:17Z

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[[Consumerium]] '''levers''' are the things that change more rapidly than [[Consumerium:Itself]], or more slowly. By understanding and using them, one can change [[policy]] to speed things down, or slow them up. ;-) They are the most important [[organizing tool]]s, although they are not necessarily the most important [[organizing method]]s that you will use in real life.

[[Faction]]s will often debate the '''levers''' rather heavily.

''A good guide to where to find levers is the [http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/twelve_levers en: Meta-Wikipedia: twelve levers] list.''

Interwiki link standard

2004-08-15T10:08:50Z

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Direct democracy

2004-08-15T10:06:13Z

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While all kinds of things are said [[by any of us|Consudev:We]] in [[Consumerium:Itself]] about [[politics]] and [[civics]], the actual [[policy]] should be set as much as possible by '''direct democracy'''. This suggests we mostly decide by [[referenda]].

However, referendum questions don't arise from nowhere, and the language they employ is also not strictly neutral, and requires some buy-in and deliberate consultation and [[outreach]] to make work. This requires some [[consensus democracy]] and [[deliberative democracy]] and some elements even of [[representative democracy]] to make work. Also, there are situations where these forms of democracy are preferable to using [[voting systems]] up-front:

*[[Consensus decision making]] should apply where a policy is constrained, where [[advice]] is offered that needs to draw on everyone's knowledge and experience and instincts, or where we have a lot of time and not many people who care - such as the exact wording of some article that is not part of [[policy]] - to understand this look at [[Page history]]. A [[consensus democracy]] may also be preferred within [[faction]]s to make joint decisions that affect only themselves. See below for some.
*[[Deliberative democracy]] should apply to [[questions]] such as the [[FAQ]], or any other open-ended issue where we don't need to make any one decision fast. Bottom-up accumulation of policy and ratification into [[what Consumerium is not]] can continue in this way until someone objects to or disputes a point. No factions required yet! Really this is what goes on, on [[Talk page]]s.
*[[Representative democracy]] starts to matter when disputes have arisen and are consistently recurring and there are so many people involved that no one has time to thoroughly understand each other in depth and must rely on some intermediaries and filters - this is when the [[faction]]s really are needed. Three functions that they can or should be called on to perform:
**An [[IP block]] ideally would be up to a user's own faction to decide - it's not something that should be done to one by an enemy who is not taking your political views into account. It should be your friends saying you've gone too far. If you have no friends, well, you are a faction unto yourself, and if you don't declare or state your agenda, maybe you're [[enemy]]?
**Before [[referenda]], each [[faction]] should be called on to ratify the wording of the question at hand. Whether or not they have participated in the deliberations beforehand. If they at least have a chance to object that the question is politically slanted or wrongly stated, or that the time of the choice is related to some particular group's agenda, the odds that they will respect the will of the majority afterwards is higher.
**When there is a dispute about the accuracy of reporting of a particular group's views or positions, the [[faction]] that holds the most similar views should be the one that makes final decisions about the wording, as they are the ones most likely to make the most subtle distinctions that the other factions don't recognize or respect.

See [[grassroots democracy]], [[anticipatory democracy]], [[participatory democracy]] and [[voting systems]] for more ways to organize [[policy]] democratically.

Sysop vandalism

2004-08-15T09:57:19Z

Support a unified GFDL Corpus:

'''Sysop vandalism''' is degrading the quality of a [[blog]], [[newsgroup]] or [[wiki]] for reasons that have nothing to do with the objective of the project or the mandate of the group. It occurs frequently on Wikipedia and Disinfopedia - it is worst on the latter where sysops tend to delete things with no process at all, and ignore the [[votes for deletion]] process that non-sysops are required to go through. ''This is a very severe long-term problem and plays a major role in many [[worst cases]] visible on other public wikis.''

Such vandalism is surprisingly common: Wikipedia permits and encourages sysop vandalism with the universal excuse that "[[trolls]]" were responsible for the edits, and that somehow they will be discouraged by being "punished" somehow - this idea that [[punishment works]] is part of a [[carceral state]] metaphor. This is the basic [[conceptual metaphor]] of Wikipedia and other wikis that insist one [[use real names]] (and thus be subject to offline abuse by sysops and their friends). There is no definition of the hated class of [[trolls]] other than by the very [[sysop]]s who exclude them, and the [[developer]]s who provide features to do so. This is the first step towards a [[permission-based model]] and there may be no way to avoid imposing [[hard security]] if this path is taken by developers. Mediawiki does seem to be evolving in this direction.

These problems are made much worse by [[permanent sysop status]] and a model where one pays no price and loses no status even for the reversion of edits which are deemed ultimately constructive. Such behavior is certain to drive off the best contributors, but to serve the sysops' purpose of "converting" the board or wiki into a [[virtual community]] only for their own friends.

The most common sysop vandalism is [[ad hominem delete]] or [[ad hominem revert]] of legitimate facts or analysis, or fair comment, simply "because that user is a troll", whatever that means. This is enabled by the infamous "rule 6" of the [[Wikipedia:candidates for speedy deletion]] page, which remains despite being hotly contested by all who understand [[systemic bias]]. This policy is for the convenience of the sysops, and not the users. Users of course expect all information that advances the mission of the wiki to be available, at the very least in the older versions, and the GFDL seems in spirit at least to require this, in its [[attribution]] terms, in its requirement that modifications be [[share-alike]], and its assumption that some [[moral rights]] apply (like retrieving the source text of your own article, or indeed any article with "no [[technical barrier]]s", i.e. no [[IP block]], no [[MySQL]]).

Typically such vandalism is a symptom of [[conflicts between users]] in which the sysop is not neutral, that is, they wish to encourage one contributor and discourage another. They abuse their sysop powers by banning "those who their friends do not like", and eliminating valid contributions towards the goals. There may be cases where this is valid, i.e. someone irreplaceable has made clear that they will not participate if someone else is tolerated. Unless the medium has a formal [[power structure]], e.g. it's a [[political party]] [[large public wiki]] governed by the policies of that party and its officers, such decisions are almost always either "sysop instinct" or [[GodKing]] choices.

A specific [[sysop power structure]] may be required to reduce such vandalism.

A related issue is [[sysop vigilantiism]] which is not necessarily vandalism, but does subvert [[due process]] and degrade trust in the [[power structure]]. However, [[social exclusion]] of some [[faction]] can just cause it to go somewhere else: as with [[Wikipedia factions]], many of whom left early to do something else. [[Sysop vandalism]] is much worse, because it prevents the actual [[GFDL corpus]] from being corrected, and may not even be noticed for a long time. So controls on [[sysop vandalism]] are highest priority, as with all other [[vandalism]] (the only reason to need any kind of [[sysop]]).

Sysop vandalism

2004-08-15T09:56:54Z

Support a unified GFDL Corpus:

'''Sysop vandalism''' is degrading the quality of a [[blog]], [[newsgroup]] or [[wiki]] for reasons that have nothing to do with the objective of the project or the mandate of the group. It occurs frequently on Wikipedia and Disinfopedia - it is worst on the latter where sysops tend to delete things with no process at all, and ignore the [[votes for deletion]] process that non-sysops are required to go through. ''This is a very severe long-term problem and plays a major role in many [[worst cases]] visible on other public wikis.''

Such vandalism is surprisingly common: Wikipedia permits and encourages sysop vandalism with the universal excuse that "[[trolls]]" were responsible for the edits, and that somehow they will be discouraged by being "punished" somehow - this idea that [[punishment works]] is part of a [[carceral state]] metaphor. This is the basic [[conceptual metaphor]] of Wikipedia and other wikis that insist one [[use real names]] (and thus be subject to offline abuse by sysops and their friends). There is no definition of the hated class of [[trolls]] other than by the very [[sysop]]s who exclude them, and the [[developer]]s who provide features to do so. This is the first step towards a [[permission-based model]] and there may be no way to avoid imposing [[hard security]] if this path is taken by developers. Mediawiki does seem to be evolving in this direction.

These problems are made much worse by [[permanent sysop status]] and a model where one pays no price and loses no status even for the reversion of edits which are deemed ultimately constructive. Such behavior is certain to drive off the best contributors, but to serve the sysops' purpose of "converting" the board or wiki into a [[virtual community]] only for their own friends.

The most common sysop vandalism is [[ad hominem delete]] or [[ad hominem revert]] of legitimate facts or analysis, or fair comment, simply "because that user is a troll", whatever that means. This is enabled by the infamous "rule 6" of the [[Wikipedia:candidates for speedy deletion]] page, which remains despite being hotly contested by all who understand [[systemic bias]]. This policy is for the convenience of the sysops, and not the users. Users of course expect all information that advances the mission of the wiki to be available, at the very least in the older versions, and the GFDL seems in spirit at least to require this, in its [[attribution]] terms, in its requirement that modifications be [[share-alike]], and its assumption that some [[moral rights]] apply (like retrieving the source text of your own article, or indeed any article with "no [[technical barrier]]s", i.e. no [[IP block]], no [[MySQL]]).

Typically such vandalism is a symptom of [[conflicts between users]] in which the sysop is not neutral, that is, they wish to encourage one contributor and discourage another. They abuse their sysop powers by banning "those who their friends do not like", and eliminating valid contributions towards the goals. There may be cases where this is valid, i.e. someone irreplaceable has made clear that they will not participate if someone else is tolerated. Unless the medium has a formal [[power structure]], e.g. it's a [[political party]] [[large public wiki]] governed by the policies of that party and its officers, such decisions are almost always either "sysop instinct" or [[GodKing]] choices.

A specific [[sysop power structure]] may be required to reduce such vandalism.

[[Sysop vandalism]] is much worse than [[sysop vigilantiism]], since [[social exclusion]] of some [[faction]] can just cause it to go somewhere else: as with [[Wikipedia factions]], many of whom left early to do something else. So controls on [[sysop vandalism]] are highest priority, as with all other [[vandalism]] (the only reason to need any kind of [[sysop]]).

because it prevents the actual [[GFDL corpus]] from being corrected, and may not even be noticed for a long time.

A related issue is [[sysop vigilantiism]] which is not necessarily vandalism, but does subvert [[due process]] and degrade trust in the [[power structure]]. However, [[social exclusion]] of some [[faction]] can just cause it to go somewhere else: as with [[Wikipedia factions]], many of whom left early to do something else. [[Sysop vandalism]] is much worse, because it prevents the actual [[GFDL corpus]] from being corrected, and may not even be noticed for a long time. So controls on [[sysop vandalism]] are highest priority, as with all other [[vandalism]] (the only reason to need any kind of [[sysop]]).

Talk:Faction

2004-08-15T06:39:25Z

Support a unified GFDL Corpus: some TIPAESA discussion

''From [[Talk:142.177.X.X]]. [[User:Juxo]] writes:''

Please review [[Special:Wantedpages]]. Your articles are pretty dominant in the top 10 and I'm interested in what meaning have you reserved for words like:

* [[Done]] (is this a legal term of some sort??)
* [[Safe]] (something considered safe in developing countries will likely not be such in developed ones)
* ...

::The top 5 are [[done]], [[safe]], [[fair]], [[evil]] and [[organic]]. Whatever personal meaning I have in mind, will as you say be over-ruled by standards and laws and movements more local. So we might need definitions f this for each [[ecoregion]], say?

::But there will still be disagreements within each region. As laid out in [[glossary]], I think that a [[faction]] says what is [[fair]] and what is say [[organic]]. Like political parties, they simplify the discussion and pick issues to debate at any one time. This is how they satisfy the various ideas of [[done]], [[safe]] and [[evil]] faction members share to at least some degree, or they would not be a faction. So there's a formula or function we do not have yet, which establishes how you see what is "[[done]]" or what is acceptable to [[label]] "[[organic]]".

::Maybe a good policy is to deliberately NOT DEFINE such overloaded terms and wait until there *are* factions to debate them.
----
[[Reds]]? [[Greens]] [[Pinks]]? [[Blues]]?, are these some terms that only people who enjoy throwing bricks at [[fast-food]] [[restaurant]]s and use the term [[syndicalised anarchism]] more then twenty times a day have in their common vocabulary??

Could we please stick to English that the majority of people understand, because developing [[Consumerium]] is not about feeling extrovert elite-digi-intellectualism, but creating information tools for [[consumer]]s

:Consumers do not see this level, it is just for reconciling different levels of trust in different sources, and concern about different kind of problems. If someone registers concerns about "Green" things ([[deforestation]]), "Red" things ([[union made]]), "Pink" things ([[sweatshop-free]]), etc., then they will get a personal mix of other concerns based on how much others who share thos concerns care about related things. Those who throw the bricks and use the term [[syndicalised anarchism]] will argue about the shades of it and register different levels of concern with different things. It is necessary to have this level, otherwise each [[faction]] goes to create its OWN Consumerium!!! Bad idea.

::[[Blues]] you didn't explain.

:::Blues are [[globalization]] believers, those who read ''[[The Economist]]'' and believe it, or at least pretend to. Blue for sea, sky, the UN, and liquidity.

----
[[Faction]]: 13 links (position nro. 1 on the wanted pages). I think that I understand the consept of faction, but originally in my mind factions were something that would emerge in a self-organizing manner,

:To do bottom-up design we must change this name from "wanted" pages - in design you want the most abstract ideas to be defined later - they are not "wanted" at this point and it is foolish to be forced by wikipedia3 into premature def'n.

::You're absolutely right. Forging explanations of concepts too early can lead to slowing the project down because of hastily made up defs that make it harder and harder to do good defs in the future. '''Check out what I did on [[Reference]]. It's now a page just for tracking pages that discuss reference or sources of reference. [[User:Juxo|Juxo]] 23:43 Jun 13, 2003 (EEST)

not by some developers dreaming up boxes we can put people in and then define what they are interested in and how they participate. I mean: just get the infrastructure available that tight or loose [[consortium]]s can start to form and let the consortiums define their (extended FOAF-style) relationships to each other...

:Yes, agreed, they will form bottom-up. But to help them form we must establish FIRST what complexity they resolve for us SECOND how we expect them to present their shared priorities to the system to help them prioritize themselves and THIRD what parts of our own [[glossary]] are up to them not us to define. is also not up to us to tell them they need a [[consortium]] form or should just let people self-identify as say "Greens" and then list their concerns. If this leads to a concept of "Green" different from [[Greenpeace]] or [[Green Parties]] that is an [[audit]] issue we can deal with later. We need just this vague colour spectrum indicator to help those with similar values form a self-image useful to link up with other groups "outside".

------
[http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2004-March/011443.html Abe Sokolov on the wikien-l list] writes:

:"The "[[Reds|red]] [[faction]]" isn't a [[vandalism]] problem, but an example of mutual misperception and misjudgment breeding conflict and hostility. On a more practical note, the persistence of the "red faction" in regenerating itself over and over again (almost like Lir and his many incarnations) makes it clear that banning this user, or [[driven off by trolls|attempting to chase him away and make him feel unwelcome]], are crude, self-defeating solutions. Since the Wiki mailing list is libertarian country, I'll say that it's like slapping on price controls to curb inflation. Or perhaps putting a bandage on a leaking dam. In other words, it's an unworkable straitjacket that will only confound the problem."

This suggests Sokolov understands enough about the issues to help work out features of a faction system here, and identify [[factionally defined]] terms.

------------

Also re: [[Wikipedia Red Faction]] is [[Daniel Mayer]]'s comment "Wikipedia breaking up into factions is a very, very bad idea." [http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2004-June/013471.html] This should prove to all espousing the [[New Troll point of view]] that it is in fact a very ''good'' idea, as Mayer is the most notorious [[sysop vandalism]] advocate and the source of most [[Wikimedia corruption]] according to some.

------------

Timing: when do we have to block IP of our first non-simple vandal? Liar, bully, bigot, paid provocateur? That's when we have to make decisions:

*Issue: figuring out what these "bad things" mean is controversial, and seems to label people rather than behaviour or specific incidents or posts
**position: Assigning labels to individuals is damaging to creative discussion
***argument: Not every post is associated with an "individual", and no individual leads their whole life online, and certainly not in this forum - there are some forms of creative discussion that simply belong somewhere else
**position: Assigning labels to individuals happens anyway: [[Vandals]] and [[Trolls]] get named that by other people. Or get called "anti-Semite" or "thug" or "liar" or something. There is no clear way for them to adopt any other more accurate or expressive label.
***argument: a '''faction''' lets someone be labelled, but it also lets them change that label, and decide who they see themselves as accountable to, where [[social inclusion]] is at issue
*Issue: the roles of factions in simplifying and focusing common arguments
**position: Self-applying labels so as to identify with a faction that holds a well defined viewpoint is productive, as it saves time re-explaining well defined concepts
***argument: we've seen a lot of the arguments before; many are well worn and arise due to various differences in life experience and economic interests that are really hard to eliminate, and certainly won't be settled online here.
***argument: if we allow someone to identify the predictable and imitative part of their argument, that makes the creative and original part stand out, and it helps them identify if maybe better rhetoric or evidence already exists that would make it easier for them to make the same point - but that's up to them
**position: Identifying factions allows them to claim viewpoints as factional, so protecting them from [[sysop vandalism]]
***argument: this seems to be the default anyway as people gang up to resist [[ad hominem revert]]s - over time, people will notice that certain people who say what they think are reasonable things are reverted more often than others who say what they think are less reasonable things, and that will form factions whether they are acknowledged or not.
****evidence: multi-party [[representative democracy]] evolved in every country that tried to start with [[direct democracy]] or [[participatory democracy]]; it therefore must be assumed to solve some essential problems
*Issue: [[factionally defined]] terms are often specifically chosen to created [[forced conjunction]] or deny the importance of major distinctions the "other side" sees as crucial, like denying "choice" or "life" as values in the [[abortion]] debate by trying to get neutrals to use a label which puts the emphasis on one or the other
**position: forcing all factions to agree on neutral titles is one of the great successes of [[neutral point of view]]. Neutral titles are good policy and make it much easier to find [[troll bridges]].
**position: [[Consumerium:Itself]] can't expect to do any better than the people who devote their lives to [[dispute resolution]] and policy debate in the real world. For instance, you can't expect to achieve more agreement on what global [[sustainable industries]] are than say [[Green Party policy]] would reflect already - if they, who care about it and believe in it the most, can't exactly define it, then, it's irrational to believe that [[Consumerium:We]] can.
***argument: this terminology is weak, because the subject matter is new and difficult
****evidence: the difficulty of even just getting all [[Green Party policy]] and [[greenspeak]] in one place and up to date has prevented it from happening so far!
**position: If [[Green Party policy]] really does help unify Green Party policy, then [[Greens]] at least could claim to "know how to do this" advancing of terminology. They can then try convincing everyone else to use [[greenspeak]] at least when talking about economics and industries. ONLY WHEN THAT WORKS CAN THEY CLAIM TO HAVE ANY EXPERTISE HERE.
***argument: this is actually one of the EASIER problems in factionally defined terms, since Greens take so much terminology from well known fields - they use terms from the [[w:list of ecology topics]], [[w:list of ethics topics]] as is, whereas other factions typically try to just invent their own.

Trolls

2004-08-15T06:17:59Z

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The word [[troll]] is applied to many diverse heretics, dissidents, and other disagreers in various contexts. They seem to reject joining social clubs and accepting [[groupthink|group-defined concepts of politeness]]. It isn't clearly why, but, trolls sometimes say they are engaged in a battle of "empathy" *against* "eloquence" - the latter being an attribute of liars, frauds, con men, cheaters, politicians, and [[artificial intelligence]].

The role of '''trolls''' in [[Consumerium]] is unclear. There is not even an agreement on what is a [[troll]] and what they generally do. What is clear is that some think it is insulting to call someone a troll, and others take pride in being trolls, or called trolls. If you read "[[Trolls]] believe..." or "[[Trolls]] request..." or other use of "'''trolls'''" as a [[pronoun]], that is a sure sign you are dealing with someone who self-identifies with trolls. Such people can be assumed to share IP numbers to get around blocks, to freely offer passwords to each other, quote each others texts without any attribution, and to [[foment ambiguity]] in ways that make it simply impossible to tell "who wrote what", at least [[beyond a reasonable doubt]].

Because they discount [[identity]] but usually claim to represent or protect [[some body]], '''trolls''' will usually cluster around something they wish to protect. Often this is something of symbolic importance such as [[ape mother]]s or the root of their culture, the [[world tree]]. Those who disrespect such basic elements of troll culture can expect to be [[driven off by trolls]]. It is sometimes the case that the [[roots of empathy]], which trolls confuse with the roots of the world tree perhaps, can be reached by some process of mutual gnawing. Rather than patronize a "village pump", since they reject "community" metaphors, one is more likely to find trolls doing a [[Consumerium:trollgnaw]].

Regarding the impact of such collective anonymous trolling, there is just no agreement at all. What one thinks tends to depend on what one feels about:
*[[free circulation of fiction]]
*[[identifying people]] - a [[sysop]] usually tries to identify a [[troll]], by [[outing]], but trolls usually insists on staying anonymous or ambiguous, and may [[foment ambiguity]]
*[[free speech]] - which trolls usually support
*[[reputation]] - trolls usually think reputation leads to stupidity, or that reputation is evidence of stupidity, or that reputation *is* stupidity or the universal excuse for it
*[[authority]] - which trolls don't like
*[[libel]] - which some trolls do, and others try to avoid being done to them, by staying trolls and not letting libellers know their names or where they are.

Trolls are the most challenging [[faction]] because they are typically diverse, and very often refuse to accept the [[community point of view]] as a [[neutral point of view]], or accept any [[pigeonholing]] or labelling of their views by others.

Thus trolls are atomic ''[[agent provocateur|agents provocateurs]]'' and vital to [[grassroots]] process.

Usually the label ''troll'' simply indicates that someone considers them pests or [[usurper]]s. They do not usually fit clearly as part of any clique or group of [[Consumerium:We|"friends"]] or [[Consumerium:Enemy|"enemies"]], but often just deny any goal but [[truth]]. They are a faction by default, only because they do not clearly identify with any other faction or accept any other guidance.

However, for precisely these reasons, they are the most useful in discovering the limitations of existing terminology, categories, and assumptions, especially those related to the [[sysop power structure]] that labels them. A [[troll-friendly]] [[large public wiki]] can expect some problems and challenges and drop-outs from people who can't develop the [[political virtues]] quickly enough. However it presumably gains and exploits those who are marginalized or abused elsewhere, which suits the progressive values of [[Consumerium:itself]].

The Wikipedia article on [[w:Internet troll|Internet trolls]] seems to say "a troll is a pest" and assumes [[psychiatry]] applies (that the sysop can tell what the motivation of the troll is, amazingly). However, the [[m:troll|troll (Meta-Wikipedia)]] article seems to say that trolls serve an important [[audit]] role, by driving bad contributors out of a project, or harassing stupid ideas to death, or just generally knowing how a project can evolve to work better. ''There is more on this in [[Talk:urban ecology]].''

What should trolls do and not do on Consumerium? How does one recognize but
not be too trusting of a [[friendly troll]]? Enter your beliefs here:

'''Some [[criticism]] of [[trolling tactics]] in the Consumerium context:'''

*Trolls wish to remain anonymous and thus hard to communicate with in a reliable manner ie. [[email]] or [[IM]] such as [[IRC]] or [[jabber.org]]
*:Defense: The anonymity allows them greater [[freedom of expression]]. Trolls may also do intricate politics if they play a double role that they have an user account that is kept distinct from, unassociated with, [[trollish]] edits.
*:Trolls encourage [[faction]]s to form, and will usually respond to comments directed towards a faction, rather than towards them personally - though it's hard to know who is responding, that's what they don't want to focus on.
*Trolls sometimes apply grammar so [[ambiguous]] that it is indecypherable what is actually being said - [[troll poetry]] for instance is a deliberate attempt to break up and apply [[cognitive dissonance]] to some terms, such as claiming to be "a propriate" as a response to someone else thinking they are [[inappropriate]]. Trolls literally enforce [[General Semantics]] sometimes.
*:Defense: This makes the [[Lowest Troll]] or some other user think very hard before having a crack at making the article sensible to the layperson - if you really don't understand it, you probably won't bother, and that's the point too
*Trolls sometimes seem to have typos on articles that contain very inflammatory material - some will claim that a vast change is a [[minor edit]].
*:Rationale: Correcting the typo by some other user also implicates that they have read through the material and silently approval it's contents if no major editing occours.
*:Deliberate inclusion of typos or attempts to do [[crazymaking]] are reactive trolling tactics that simply don't happen on [[troll-friendly]] [[large public wiki]]s where no [[sysop vandalism]] is allowed.

Pinks

2004-08-15T06:14:29Z

Support a unified GFDL Corpus:

'''Pinks''' are a notable global [[faction]] of people with [[common values]] that transcend any country or ethnicity. It's a catch-all term as there are many people who believe that economy and society should be more humane and less competitive. These tend among other things to resist introducing elements such as a [[prediction market]] where people can profit from betting on disasters.

''The rest of what is said here is controversial and intends to summarize how Pinks will fit into the [[Consumerium social club]] and influence perhaps the [[Consumerium Governance Organization]]. Since Pinks must define their own values and concerns, '''''no one who does not consider themselves a Pink''''' should edit this article - what is here is only for illustration & discussion, and a copy of the original has been archived, so feel free to edit this now. If you think you're being stereotyped, you're right, so please just fix this:''

Used politically, '''Pinks''' refer to people who define themselves by sexuality: feminists, gays, lesbians, self-defined "queers", and others primarily concerned with social acceptance for everybody. They tend to really dislike gender-based or sexuality-based discrimination and refuse to buy from those who practice it.

There will likely be a [[faction]] of Pinks in the [[Consumerium social club]] and they very likely will insist on some [[factionally defined]] terms or some [[standard label]]s for products produced with no gender or sex discrimination.

Heroes of the Pinks include:

*[[Florence Nightingale]] ? OK I'm sorry please don't kill me!
*[[Camille Paglia]] ?
*[[Heidi MacDonald]]
*who else?

----

More [[feminists]] please! Tell us where our perspective is penis-centric. We love it.

Do you advocate the [[welfare state]] and [[transformative justice]] and [[empathic integrity]] and [[rights of the child]] and [[social democracy]] and a [[right to food]] and other [[human rights]] and an [[International Criminal Court]]? Like, that system can be made to work? If so you're a pink! (OK by this definition [[Green Parties]] are pinks, use your judgement)

Visions

2004-08-14T21:58:17Z

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'''[[WARNING]]: This article is linked from [[Strange articles]]!'''
----
'''Visions''' are just [[best cases]] that are too good to be true. That is, we don't believe in them, and consider them pleasant fantasies. Like the most optimistic [[best cases]], some will always consider them too strange or unreal, so this page ''should'' usually be linked from [[strange articles]]. We'd wonder what was wrong with people if they thought everything here was totally reasonable.

We do [[visioning]] for several reasons:

#Someone might actually believe in what you think is a fantasy, so you help to expand [[best cases]] by documenting visions that you personally don't believe
#It summarizes the more pleasant [[Consumerium User Stories]] in an efficient way
#It inspires us to think about what really must or might be possible
#It provides terminology with which we can more readily debate [[best cases]]. For instance it's easier to think of our best cases as being "almost as good as perfect empathy" than it is to think of them in technological terms... Visions allow us to talk directly about the empathy we want with other life, instead of getting always bogged down in details, and even envision whole new societies where [[Consumerium Services]] are basic.

So far, we seem to lack vision! So add some fantasies here, and develop the most interesting and insightful of them as [[Consumerium User Stories]] which should tone down the fantastic and play up the realistic elements.

-------------------------

REMEMBER: IF YOU CONSIDER ANY OF THESE CREDIBLE THEN YOU MUST PUT A CREDIBLE VERSION OF THEM IN [[best cases]] - '''VISIONS''' ARE ONLY FOR THE IN-CREDIBLE.

If you believe that someone's utopias are actually ''dystopias'', then, feel free to write a parallel entry for [[threats]] to emphasize these aspects. If you think [[worst cases]] will arise from pursuing the vision, e.g. someone loves the [[prison-like power structure]] of the [[Panopticon]], then, feel free to add these aspects to the vision but include some mention (possibly this is the unrealistic element) of how those issues are overcome.

----------

[[Consumerium Credit]] replaces all other [[electronic payment services]]. No [[institutional buying criteria]] can ignore our [[label data]] scheme, and it slowly becomes [[standard]]. Eventually, you just can't sell any [[red light]] product at all, anywhere, to anyone, and expect to still have any customers.

-----------

[[Consumerium Country]] actually comes into existence! A real country declares that nothing that does not get a positive [[Consumerium buying signal]] can be imported at all, and nothing made in that country will be allowed if it is a [[red light]] product. The [[WTO]] is replaced by [[Consumerium Services]].

--------------

'''Perfect Empathy'''

A virus embeds a sort of radio receiver in everyone's DNA. Now everyone who picks up anything in any store anywhere feels all the pain that was created by the product, including the damage done when it is disposed of or burned or whatever. That is, you will feel a small part of the cancer that is caused by a product whose plastic wrapping can only be disposed of by burning.

The meat industry dies. People can still hunt and fish for themselves, but, if the meat goes through the processing system, the radio-like signal causes the pain to anyone who picks up a package. Unpackaged meat off the back of a truck not being too safe, people go mostly vegan. Overall impact on the land goes down.

Most logging also dies. Cutting a tree generates so much fear and panic and loss and despair due to extinction, and worse and more obvious despair due to the new diseases (HIV, SARS, Ebola ALL came from unpredictable species contact in deforested regions), that just touching an old growth log makes people want to commit suicide. After some do, people work hard to keep old growth out of the market place, and restrict wood use to wood that is taken without causing any extinction.

Weapons can still be made, but it's quite hard to touch one that has been part of any import/export inspection regime, because, after that, you literally feel the pain of being shot with them. Only those who can bear this pain tend to handle weapons and shoot loggers and hunters of endangered species. It's something we all do once in a lifetime, as a rite of passage. Males remain competitors and killers at heart, so, we just admit that, and just make sure to kill the right people, and feel their pain. All this is a very small part of life:

Forests start to grow back, endangered species flourish, and human conflict is only small scale and directed towards protecting those. It's a garden of Eden. Someone evil who hates this looks into the DNA of the virus and tries to figure out "where it came from". It bears an amazing, but totally coincidental resemblance to code used to deliver [[Consumerium Services]] way way back in the early 2000s or so. Everyone who looks into this DNA mysteriously dies... Eventually this is explained: it came directly from God and God doesn't want His Work investigated, or tinkered with, especially not by these stupid monkeys who very nearly destroyed His Most Perfect Planet. Goddamn stupid hairless apes! Thankfully they have little power now, and are kept in line by what they start to think of as a totally natural karmic feedback effect....

Policy

2004-08-14T21:50:53Z

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Rather than apply some "absolute-sounding [[ethic]]" (even such a seemingly open and anarchically benevolent one as "[[troll-friendly]]") to develop any Consumerium policy, it seems advisable to rely mostly or only on what [[Consumerium:itself]], says about its own purpose and mission. Then the items which are very widely shared, or clearly undesirable, can be listed as specific items of standing policy, or, rejected and listed under [[what Consumerium is not]].

This method would seem to have [[bottom-up authoritative integrity]] as it does not rely on any pre-existing [[ethical code]] or [[wiki ontology]] that is imposed or defined by anyone other than the ordinary participant. It gains its authority, if any, from the lack of objection or dispute to any '''policy''', as long as there are no inhibitions against offering such objections.

If successful, this form of policy [[bootstrap]] would prove that it is quite possible to function without a [[GodKing]] or even a [[representative democracy]] model, though some [[sysop power structure]]/[[bureaucracy]] and [[faction]]/[[polity]] should be probably prepared to help any [[users in conflict]] as they work towards developing their progressive fiqh, er, policy. ;-)

One big wiki

2004-08-14T21:42:14Z

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'''One big wiki''' is the theory that many [[faction]]s can come to agree on basic editorial and arbitration policy, and thus produce one large compendium instead of splintering off into small ones. It's similar to the theory of [[one big union]] originally advanced by the [[IWW]] or "Wobblies". If one cannot "get along with" all the factions and tendencies that are willing to work for change, the theory goes, one cannot possibly maintain this resolve in the real world they seek to change.

The wiki form of this theory was proven to be very viable by [[Wikipedia]], which concentrated much effort to build the original [[GFDL text corpus]]. It has since been somewhat challenged by the emergence of various others like [[Disinfopedia]] and [[Metaweb]], for specialist purposes that do not fit the [[neutral point of view]] but instead employ [[multiple point of view]]. The [[Consumerium:Itself]] is another specialist purpose that is inherently multiple but has a rather extensive analysis of its problem area ([[moral purchasing]] and [[political consumerism]]) that tries to remain "neutral", but is deeper than could be justified in Wikipedia.

[[Wikinfo]] and [[Recyclopedia]] seem to be more direct challenges to the "neutral" view. Either may yet become one big wiki in which many [[faction]]s work to some common [[purpose]] - though what that is, is undetermined.

''See [[Talk:faction]] for more discussion and debate on this.''

Organizing tool

2004-08-14T21:29:49Z

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An '''organizing tool''' is a process, method, template or other means of filtering and ordering agendas, schedules, priorities, demands, or etc.

Samples:

*[[TIPAESA]] - a template for organizing complex issue debates
*[http://gpus.org/organize/index.html Green Party of US organizing tools]
*[[Consumerium:Itself]] - reflexive view of what Consumerium says it is
*[[Consumerium:Levers]] - list of ways to change what Consumerium is easily

GodKing

2004-08-14T21:19:58Z

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The GodKing is the owner of the site, or its administrator, or any sysop that finally got ultimate power. He uses his authority a lot. Some people thinks this is fair (especially when the GodKing is the creator of the site, or the owner of the server) and good (because he can ensure that certain guidelines stayed no disputed). Others think it is oppressive and limit the quality of participation.

To avoid becoming oppressive, the GodKing could stay away of his site if possible, be transparent in any of his decisions, and empower others whenever possible.

GodKings should avoid threatening or scaring away editors, as they would resent it, and perhaps take revenge at worse, or stop contributing.

The GodKing usually owns or has the trust of those who own the [[infrastructural capital]] of the [[web service]] providing access, even if it is to a public resource, e.g. the [[GFDL text corpus]]. This role is essential to any [[hard security]] regime as it provides some cover for a [[sysop power structure]] whose acts would otherwise be [[sysop vigilantiism]].

Because even [[soft security]] schemes rely on [[sysop vandalism]] to "discourage [[trolls]], such a ruler is usually considered a [[usurper]] by such minority authors. However the [[community point of view]] will almost always strongly reflect the GodKing view, since members of that [[virtual community]] are selected only from those who the GodKing accepts. The [[Wikipedia]] has such a person - his name is [[Jimbo Wales]].

Most [[wiki management]] ideology, e.g. the [[wiki way]], considers the '''GodKing''' rulership paradigm to be hopelessly primitive. Indeed, it seems to have gone out with the pagan [[Caesar]]s.

GodKing

2004-08-14T21:19:35Z

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Worst cases

2004-08-14T21:12:22Z

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'''Worst cases''' are bad things that happen if we design or run this wrong. Success avoiding worst cases then leads us to [[best cases]].

We pick [[licenses]] and [[hardware]] and [[design]] and [[content]] in order to minimize the risk of these things happening. Therefore we must exhaustively list them before we make binding choices. The [[Consumerium Governance Organisation]] will have to devote a lot of time to expanding this list.

Rather than edit a case, it's better to write a new one that is more general or more specific. Make the cases very specific or very general, but stick to things you think really can happen. If you think they can't happen, they are [[threats]], and document them anyway, since ''someone'' thinks they can happen.
----
[[Consumerium]]'s [[security]] plan or implementation of it is so bad that consumerium gets severely cracked and nobody no longer knows what's real and what's fake. This leads to some [[hot potato]] issues or lawsuits.

----
If we chooose to use [[Consumerium Software License]] two things could result:
#The [[anarchist]] types think that we are too "mainstream", "sold out" or [[control freak]]s and decide to make a [[GPL]] version that runs without any cooperation with the [[companies]], that make and market [[products]] thus making strong worded, weakly substantiated attacks on [[companies]] and [[persons]] possible and the result is that this [[Anarchist Consumerium Fork]] stays out of the mainstream and never reaches the general population of [[consumer]]s
#The executives at big businesses think that we're too [[anarchist]], [[free speech]] and bad for "profit by exploitation"-practices and make a [[Proprietary Consumerium Fork]] for the opposite reasons from the Anarchists (This possibility does not very much depend on our choice of [[Licenses]])
----

[[Consumerium]] simply doesn't work, and often clears purchases that are morally offensive to the customer, or just fails. Ultimately, it is ignored, and just gathers dust. Hardware acquired to run it is used for other purposes. Another good idea that failed. The reasons it might "not work" include at least:
*bad data
*buggy software
*incompatible hardware

----

[[Company X]] and other enemies create their own modified schema, AND modified software. The modified software works with and even EXPECTS the altered grammar, and now you have a fork. Each promoter of a new fork gets "friendly" content poured into the altered grammar that we can't get first, and (depending on content license and source) can't even copy or validate. The "new improved" [[Corporate Consumerium]] takes over with careful marketing of itself to retails. These professionally-marketed alternative software turns the same [[green light]] or [[red light]], but, with different criteria. The idea that "you own the hardware you decide what software will run on it, not the customer" is heavily promoted to the [[point of sale]] venue owner (retailer). Advertising benefits are tossed in. Since it serves the interests of retailers, and maybe pays them, it will be preferentially installed to use the [[hardware requirements|standard hardware]] deployed to those retailers by Consumerium. We get crowded out, like Linux has been crowded out, and are used only in a few backwater places that the mainstream marketers ignore. Consumerium has maybe 2% of a market in [[moral purchasing]], and does all the hard work, but is not the source of innovation.

:Actually: There no hope of them ever giving consumerium any credit as a source of Intellectual Property (read: The Concept), so it won't be a [[fork]] in the sense that they would have to say it's based on [[GFDL]]'d material from http://consumerium.org . It'll just be a big money, fancy "service" that's not "not invented here". Big companies hate "not invented here" things.

----

[[Gus Kouwenhoven]] is involved in something, and we fail to [[boycott]] it. Somewhere, someone, who trusts [[Consumerium]], goes to [[swipe the barcode]] and it comes up only yellow or green. Considering that all that Gus does in his life is pay hunters to shoot [[Great Apes]] to feed loggers to cut down [[rainforest]] to get money to buy [[small arms]] to swap to armed thugs for [[blood diamond]]s, which they then use to take over governments in Africa to provide more safe havens for Gus to do more of the same, this is really a worst case. A system that can't catch Gus at even one of these things is worthless, actually dangerous, because people will trust it, and it makes it easier for him to continue.

-------

[[Hot potato]] lawsuits become a lawyer team sport as we get mroe influential on buying decisions.

-----

[[Consumerium Governance Organization]] never gets created, and the [[Consumerium board]] lets [[Consumerium governance]] get so slack that some of the issues above are not promptly dealt with. The system loses some integrity. Board members resign in disgust. They are replaced with people of lower quality. These try to control everything (as lower quality people do) and so a [[CGO]] gets formed as a rebel organization, and everything built so far has to be attacked by it and destroyed, in order to create space for the high-integrity thing we wanted in the first place. A good many years are lost. In that time, [[Great Ape]]s go extinct in the wild, [[rainforest]]s are destroyed, and [[GMO]] [[KitKat McFlurry]] becomes the most popular snack food.
------
By default we adopt [[GPL]] or [[LGPL]] just to extend [[APC Action Apps]] or work more closely with [[TikiWiki]] or [[MediaWiki]] or [[MoinMoinWiki]] folks. No [[Consumerium Software License]] or [[Green Documentation License]] ever gets developed that could require a focus strictly on [[green purposes]].

:Content license is more crucial. It's a furious balancing act between becoming stale and winding up in a court room. [[User:Juxo|Juxo]]

Unfortunately, using such overly-open licenses lets [[nonprofit]] [[arms industry lobby group]]s and a [[Global Warming promotion society]], using billions of dollars in corporate funding, build the [[hardware requirements]] first and give away the hardware. We can't stop them - we've given our work away, and the license says they can use it any way they want, and modify any of the [[accounting standards]] or the [[score]] system, with no [[accountability]].

:Rotten [[fork]] has always been a threat scenario. Believe me that I've spent time thinking about countering it and the best I've come up with is to be just as open about the [[goals]] as I can to minimize the risk of hostile people and organisations from attacking the project with charges of [[secret goals]]. Also it's up to the people which fork they choose to use and support. If the "cuecat"-type-of-folks get down to implementation level before us, then we just have to refocus to provide high level web-based services and forget about [[online]] [[shelf front]] presence. [[User:Juxo|Juxo]]

Of course, their version of [[Consumerium]] does not rely on any trustworthy [[styles of capital]] analysis, but instead, deliberately leaves ambiguous the most important facts about [[deforestation]] and [[arms trade]]. As a result, conflict in the world ''increases'' as a ''direct result'' of them now having our wonderful work to build propaganda fronts with. They can claim approval of all kinds of great looking front groups and show projects they have done, that a serious analysis show is just cosmetic.

We are forced to take up arms, ourselves, just to stop them... Ironically, by refusing to discriminate against them or their customers, we have ''become'' their customers... They are of course wildly happy with this result.

:Institutional vs. Grassroots influence seems to be a battle going on right at this moment and I can't really see any reason to expect much change to that in the future. Mellow down [[troll] [[User:Juxo|Juxo]]

----

'''Do any of the above seem unrealistic or impossible? Do you feel like deleting or toning it down? Don't, because someone believes in it. If you the author of it no longer believe in it, move it to [[threats]]. If you believe it is possible or likely, but actually a GOOD outcome, e.g. some people feel this way about [[human extinction]], add a parallel case to [[best cases]] emphasizing these aspects, and feel free to add some mention of those issues here, but with "how they went wrong" (keep best and worst separate even if they are exactly the same case - remember that these labels may well be [[factionally defined]] but we need to agree on at least a few basic ones to decide what to avoid). '''

Trolls

2004-08-14T21:08:58Z

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The word [[troll]] is applied to many diverse heretics, dissidents, and other disagreers in various contexts. They seem to reject joining social clubs and accepting [[groupthink|group-defined concepts of politeness]]. It isn't clearly why, but, trolls sometimes say they are engaged in a battle of "empathy" *against* "eloquence" - the latter being an attribute of liars, frauds, con men, cheaters, politicians, and [[artificial intelligence]].

The role of '''trolls''' in [[Consumerium]] is unclear. There is not even an agreement on what is a [[troll]] and what they generally do. What is clear is that some think it is insulting to call someone a troll, and others take pride in being trolls, or called trolls. If you read "[[Trolls]] believe..." or "[[Trolls]] request..." or other use of "'''trolls'''" as a [[pronoun]], that is a sure sign you are dealing with someone who self-identifies with trolls. Such people can be assumed to share IP numbers to get around blocks, to freely offer passwords to each other, quote each others texts without any attribution, and to [[foment ambiguity]] in ways that make it simply impossible to tell "who wrote what", at least [[beyond a reasonable doubt]].

Because they discount [[identity]] but usually claim to represent or protect [[some body]], '''trolls''' will usually cluster around something they wish to protect. Often this is something of symbolic importance such as [[ape mother]]s or the root of their culture, the [[world tree]]. Those who disrespect such basic elements of troll culture can expect to be [[driven off by trolls]]. It is sometimes the case that the [[roots of empathy]], which trolls confuse with the roots of the world tree perhaps, can be reached by some process of mutual gnawing. Rather than patronize a "village pump", since they reject "community" metaphors, one is more likely to find trolls doing a [[Consumerium:trollgnaw]].

Regarding the impact of such collective anonymous trolling, there is just no agreement at all. What one thinks tends to depend on what one feels about:
*[[free circulation of fiction]]
*[[identifying people]] - a [[sysop]] usually tries to identify a [[troll]], by [[outing]], but trolls usually insists on staying anonymous or ambiguous, and may [[foment ambiguity]]
*[[free speech]] - which trolls usually support
*[[reputation]] - trolls usually think reputation leads to stupidity, or that reputation is evidence of stupidity, or that reputation *is* stupidity or the universal excuse for it
*[[authority]] - which trolls don't like
*[[libel]] - which some trolls do, and others try to avoid being done to them, by staying trolls and not letting libellers know their names or where they are.

Trolls are the most challenging [[faction]] because they are typically diverse, and very often refuse to accept the [[community point of view]] as a [[neutral point of view]], or accept any [[pigeonholing]] or labelling of their views by others.

Thus trolls are atomic ''[[agent provocateur|agents provocateurs]]'' and vital to [[grassroots]] process.

Usually the label ''troll'' simply indicates that someone considers them pests or [[usurper]]s.

However, for precisely these reasons, they are the most useful in discovering the limitations of existing terminology, categories, and assumptions, especially those related to the [[sysop power structure]] that labels them. A [[troll-friendly]] [[large public wiki]] can expect some problems and challenges and drop-outs from people who can't develop the [[political virtues]] quickly enough. However it presumably gains and exploits those who are marginalized or abused elsewhere, which suits the progressive values of [[Consumerium:itself]].

The Wikipedia article on [[w:Internet troll|Internet trolls]] seems to say "a troll is a pest" and assumes [[psychiatry]] applies (that the sysop can tell what the motivation of the troll is, amazingly). However, the [[m:troll|troll (Meta-Wikipedia)]] article seems to say that trolls serve an important [[audit]] role, by driving bad contributors out of a project, or harassing stupid ideas to death, or just generally knowing how a project can evolve to work better. ''There is more on this in [[Talk:urban ecology]].''

What should trolls do and not do on Consumerium? How does one recognize but
not be too trusting of a [[friendly troll]]? Enter your beliefs here:

'''Some [[criticism]] of [[trolling tactics]] in the Consumerium context:'''

*Trolls wish to remain anonymous and thus hard to communicate with in a reliable manner ie. [[email]] or [[IM]] such as [[IRC]] or [[jabber.org]]
*:Defense: The anonymity allows them greater [[freedom of expression]]. Trolls may also do intricate politics if they play a double role that they have an user account that is kept distinct from, unassociated with, [[trollish]] edits.
*:Trolls encourage [[faction]]s to form, and will usually respond to comments directed towards a faction, rather than towards them personally - though it's hard to know who is responding, that's what they don't want to focus on.
*Trolls sometimes apply grammar so [[ambiguous]] that it is indecypherable what is actually being said - [[troll poetry]] for instance is a deliberate attempt to break up and apply [[cognitive dissonance]] to some terms, such as claiming to be "a propriate" as a response to someone else thinking they are [[inappropriate]]. Trolls literally enforce [[General Semantics]] sometimes.
*:Defense: This makes the [[Lowest Troll]] or some other user think very hard before having a crack at making the article sensible to the layperson - if you really don't understand it, you probably won't bother, and that's the point too
*Trolls sometimes seem to have typos on articles that contain very inflammatory material - some will claim that a vast change is a [[minor edit]].
*:Rationale: Correcting the typo by some other user also implicates that they have read through the material and silently approval it's contents if no major editing occours.
*:Deliberate inclusion of typos or attempts to do [[crazymaking]] are reactive trolling tactics that simply don't happen on [[troll-friendly]] [[large public wiki]]s where no [[sysop vandalism]] is allowed.

Wiki management

2004-08-14T21:02:22Z

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'''Wiki management''' applies when there is potential for [[users in conflict]] in a [[large public wiki]].

Responsible management "attempts to implement" some [[mission statement]] with "[[policy]] decisions suitable for" that mission. Little can be said in general about [[wiki operations]] without detailed consideration of how the [[operational distinction]]s that will be made will affect that mission.

Although they may not adopt the [[New Troll point of view]] uncritically, they should at least consider it, before they adopt [[sysop vigilantiism]] tactics, and they should try to remain as [[troll-friendly]] as possible as long as possible to ensure that they have robust ways to handle users in conflict that do not favour any side in a [[political dispute]] or [[identity dispute]].

Despite this good advice, much [[wiki ideology]] has evolved under blanket terms like "[[virtual community]]", "[[soft security]]", "[[hard security]]", or "[[wiki way]]" that is often claimed to be applicable to all wiki technology. This is a highly questionable claim. There is not even one widely accepted [[wiki ontology]] in which to discuss these terms:

It has taken considerable effort even just to discover what "[[trolls]] really are." It appears that they are simply users who anger others, who could be anyone, adn who insist on some [[due process]] and [[bottom-up authoritative integrity]], and in doing so tend to annoy the [[sysop power structure]], which will eventually [[block IP]] rather than continuing to deal with their dissent. One can in general globally subsitute the word "heretic" for the word "troll" and clarify the theological power structure considerably. It is no accident that the term [[GodKing]] is used to describe the user of last resort.

Many including [[Consumerium:Itself]] seek to defy such authoritarian models.

More experienced users, such as [[Ward Cunningham]], recognize the heritage of prior public [[online discussion media]] (e.g. [[Usenet]]), prior inhouse [[software development repository]] technology, text [[database management]], and various problems (such as dominance by a particular [[clique]] or "[[cabal]]") that seem to arise in all media no matter how open they seem to be at start. See [[Wikipedia]] for more on its many failures. However, some of these failures are probably results of "going first":

Web service management using [[wiki software]] is a sometimes complex problem often confused with issues in [[text corpus management]], [[web service management]] in general, [[nonprofit governance]] and [[wikitext standard]]s. Meta-Wikipedia and MeatballWiki attempt some amateur discussion of this but in general they very badly confuse the above issues. They are not recommended for the serious professional student of the problem. For serious use, refer the following:

*[http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?WikiManagement en:c2:WikiManagement]
*'''Consumerium wiki management''' (analysis of particularly complex management problem in contentious competitive commercially-important proposed wiki)

==Consumerium wiki management==

Wiki management of the [[Content Wiki]] and [[Opinion Wiki]], and the [[sysop power structure]] of each, is a major concern of [[Consumerium Governance]]. It must be supervised by the [[Consumerium Governance Organization]] under the guidance of a genuinely [[independent board]].

A poorly managed wiki, e.g. those run by [[Wikimedia]], can generate legal and goodwill problems that spread far beyond their own services. For instance, a [[libel pit]] amplified by an [[echo chamber]] can generate an unlimited number of [[cease and desist letter]]s from individuals who believe, probably correctly, they have been misrepresented or slandered by a [[bad copy problem]] or [[broken telephone]] picking up the output of the echo chamber.

=== democratic user roles ===

We may require formal [[Wiki Editor]] and [[Wiki Lawyer]]/advocate/mediator roles to guide [[Wiki Sysop]] behaviour. ''Left on their own they tend to be [[little tin god]]s - each hoping to grow up to be [[GodKing]]. This shouldn't be encouraged. Nor should a clique of [[usurper]]s doing [[sysop vandalism]], which seems to be the next step in the "evolution" away from GodKings to some [[priestly hierarchy]]. None of these poor management methods will be able to generate or respond to real world pressures, and only work in a fantasy world, like video games, which seem to be where many of these people learn all they actually know about management.''

[[Consumerium buying signal]] will not stand up under scrutiny in a democratic society, or even [[cease and desist letter]]s directed to its board, unless it has democratic [[sysop power structure]]. Good sysops are disposable, period. Good editors are not. And good lawyers can keep your project going when it otherwise would be flushed down the toilet (see reference to [[Wikimedia]] above, which will almost certainly be destroyed by failure to democratize in time).

=== problems ===

Specific '''wiki management''' problems include, from longest to shortest term:

==== infrastructural ====

*Picking [[wiki code]] that actually makes it easy to do the above, and avoiding that which has requirements set by a small clique of control freaks.

*Balancing [[Consumerium:contributor]] vs. [[Consumerium:editor]] balances of power. This may involve some mechanics, e.g. an explicit [[revert currency]].

==== social ====

*Knowing when [[written consensus]] is possible, e.g. using [[troll bridge]] approach, and when it's just going to continue as [[edit war]] forever no matter what, i.e. it is a [[Consumerium:political dispute]] or something that reflects a real world POV difference.

*Knowing when [[soft security]] can't apply, e.g. definition of [[Consumerium:vandalism]].

*Detecting and moderating [[usurper]] behaviour before they must be [[driven off by trolls]]; making sure that trolls do not unfairly charge the usurpers with things they have not actually done, or create their own [[echo chamber]].

==== instructional ====

*Degrading or placing on standby the status of those engaged in [[ad hominem delete]] or other transparency-reducing, content-degrading tactics, which can easily result in the database falling into a state where it is legally liable.

*[[Desysopping]] those who participate in creating or echoing [[spun death threat]]s, or granting these credibility or official status beyond what was actually said; this sort of libel has extremely serious consequences in an age of no-fly lists. If a comment is an actual threat of specific violence, it must be investigated. If not, then claims that it is, must be put to rest, before the conflict over the comment escalates to the point of violence itself.

*[[protected page]] mechanics

People will actually care about the material we manage here. Jobs, companies, perhaps whole industries or national economies, will be at stake. It's foolish to imagine that [[Consumerium]] will not have all the same problems, and worse, than have been seen in every other [[large public wiki]], and some they haven't yet seen. If we are not prepared for the problems they ''have'' seen, it's not possible to be prepared for problems they haven't...

== C2 vs. Consumerium terminology ==

C2 lists "Indications that a WikiManagement change or intervention might be appropriate, include:

*Excessive use of AdHominem argument that affects WikiOperations, e.g. indiscriminately deleting pages simply because a given/hated person authored them, called AdHominemDelete. This should not be confused with WikiResolution, nor with WikiRefactoring. [but then it adds] ''In particular, a host/owner has the right to declare an individual an UnwelcomeParty. Once such a declaration has been made, the material from an UnwelcomeParty should rightly be relocated to their WikiHomePage. The distinction between AdHominemDelete, WikiResolution, and UnwelcomeParty is analogous to the distinction between kidnapping, jail, and protective custody."''

Note closely the ''assertion of domain'' that implies the [[GodKing]] role and effectively undoes the prior sentences. Note also the assumption of [[prison-like power structure]]. The most extreme cases of these usurper behaviours are called [[sysop vandalism]] and [[sysop vigilantiism]] and Consumerium would call such sysops the [[usurper]]s.

Evidently Mr. Cunningham is suffering some effects from working at Microsoft for the last six years. However C2 is still worth reading for detail. "Some possible WikiManagement changes or interventions might include:

*Consider the IdealWobblyShop? where supervisors are elected by the shop floor, described in vivid depth by RicardoSemler?, who ran his whole company this way
*Consider a RevertOnSight? policy for the most disastrous ideologies and ideas: VirtualCommunity, SoftSecurity, CommonSense, SmartMob and LimitedLiability?, and any implication that SysopVandalism? is somehow impossible since "a sysop can't possibly be a vandal!"
*Consider requiring anonymous contribution with IP only visible in case of a real legal complaint (IBM did research proving strict anonymity among those who worked together was more effective than anything which associated any identity)
*Consider summary ejection of those who speculate on identity of the anonymous (denying their RightToVanish and dragging issues out with AdHominem problems), forcing them to spend some time anonymous themselves, subject to some WitchHunt
*Consider rewrites of PersonAsProblem? language such as some habitually use, until they get the message "

All these policies seem quite troll-friendly which suggests that they did not originate with Mr. Cunningham or any other advocate of the GodKing role. Finally note this cautionary advice from Consudev:

*"a poorly managed wiki, e.g. those run by Wikimedia, can generate legal and goodwill problems that spread far beyond their own services. For instance, a libel pit amplified by an echo chamber can generate an unlimited number of cease and desist letters from individuals who believe, probably correctly, they have been misrepresented or slandered by a bad copy problem or broken telephone picking up the output of the echo chamber."

This will ring especially true to anyone who has experienced the Wikipedia mailing list, which comes very close to embodying the idea of echo chamber.

Talk:Wiki management

2004-06-09T17:48:21Z

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:''see also [[Talk:Wiki Management]]''

Is this the right-wing conservative view, and [[wiki governance]] more the left wing revolutionary view? Probably we need both to understand what's going on.

Faction

2004-06-03T16:58:49Z

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"I'll find a day to massacre them all, and raze their '''faction''' and their family..." - William Shakespeare, in Titus Andronicus

One good [[user-land]] definition of a '''faction''' is "those who disagree violently with others, but only non-violently with each other."

In [[wiki management]], a '''faction''' is a '''mandatory clique''' to deal with [[alleged and collective identity]] problems that can't otherwise be sorted out without serious [[privacy]] problems, e.g. authorizing [[outing]]. The [[Wikipedia Red Faction]] is the most obvious declared public example.

The difference between a faction and an [[interwiki identity standard]] is that you yourself decide to assert a common identity with the latter, but with a faction, it would be others telling you "please go deal with "others of your kind" and come back when we can understand you, if ever." ;-)

Factions already exist as a group of users sharing a single account or using [[anonymous proxy]] services to reuse [[IP number]]s and appear to be just one persistent [[troll]] or something. This can actually work better for some things than any [[permission-based model]], but it gives an edge to those who have figured out how to do it reliably. It also makes it hard for any limits to be put on such activity.

So, there may be user groups that are answerable only to each other and not to the management, which only manages the conflicts between factions, rather like it also tries to stay out of [[conflicts between users]] and just play referee:

A '''faction''' competes with other factions, and has a [[tendency]] to view some things the same way - it may formally cooperate or list some [[values]] or principles. It has its own view of the [[glossary]]. Any [[funded troll]]s advancing a view implies there must be a faction with that view - maybe not one that [[Consumerium:Itself]] can see.

Often it is assigned a colour on the [[political spectrum]].

Factions exist to acknowledge, limit, and channel various aspects of the [[self-interested fork problem]]. By anticipating [[factionally defined]] terms in the [[Consumerium License]], we make it easier for factions to define their own [[Consortium license]] as a sub-license of our own [[parametric license]].

Two factions are currently directly supported by the wiki software itself, those being [[developers]] and [[sysops]]. These have, as a consequence of the software itself, powers to label and identify others as [[vandals]] (those who damage or delete pages or insert erroneous assertions). There are also [[trolls]] (who annoy other users but may be doing so for legitimate political or social reasons, i.e. not simple vandals). ''It is rather hotly contested whether there is any one faction of trolls, whether trolls cooperate in factions already, etc..''

One way or another, like it or not, there is reference to these collective entities in all [[large public wiki]]s, and so there should be some formal support for creating arbitrary factions that actually represent the complexity of the social and political situation around the [[GFDL text corpus]] and the many [[point of view]] and [[user role]] differences involved. Factions would require some [[accountability]], slowing down decisions on [[factionally defined terms]] like [[picket terms]] (like "pro-choice" and "baby murder" which you will never hear from "the other side"), and other [[political virtues]] and [[peacemaking]] tactics. Though it might just be one more thing to fight about.

Three models of dealing with this have been proposed, and one attempted:

* A [[GodKing]] who simply serves as the court of last resort, "master of truth and justice" ([[Michel Foucault]]'s term for the role of the Western academic), and is probably trusted by, or is, "the owner of" a [[GFDL corpus access provider]]. This is used at [[Wikimedia]]. It has had some success in getting a lot of text contributed. It seems to be less successful in getting rid of [[systemic bias]] or removing irreponsible sysops. Also, few GodKings speak every natural language! Some suggest that a GodKing doing nothing is one of the best models, called lazy tyranny, and that it is inaction rather than action that has led to the success of Wikipedia so far.

* A [[faction system]] modelled on [[representative democracy]] as carried out in all democracies, where an edit stands or falls based on the willingness of some substantial faction of like-minded users to support it. These compete with other factions in a [[power structure]] to contain the more bureaucratic and police-like [[sysop power structure]]. This seems to have potential to simplify debate on extremely contentious issues in the same way that parties do so in countries.

::This is the proposal that probably most suits [[Consumerium:Itself]].

* A [[phyle]] system similar to that described by [[Neal Stephenson]] in his book [[The Diamond Age]]. As Metaweb is overtly an implementation of the [[Young Lady's Illustrated Primer]] from that same book, it seems entirely likely and useful that it would attempt to implement this variation of the faction. A phyle differs from a faction in various ways but mostly that it is defines an [[etiquette]] of its own and discourages informal interaction with those of other phyles, and typically takes revenge in extralegal ways if it is seriously offended (unlike a faction which is expected to work through some common bureaucratic or electoral process). See [[Metaweb:phyle]] for more details on this.

::Because it implies Neal Stephenson's model, Metaweb will likely move in this direction, and attempt to model Stephenson's phyles as factions instead of letting them develop directly from [[politics as usual]].

''See [[Talk:faction]] for extensive discussions. It will be hard to agree on one definition of faction, so please review [[glossary]] in detail to see what you think of those generic ideas, and how a faction might define a lot of things differently.''

''See [http://www.ouranswer.org/wiki/index.php/OurAnswer:faction en:OurAnswer:faction] for a similar '''faction''' system for a highly political project. [[Disinfopedia]], also very politically focused, is declining for failing to have such a system.''

''See also [http://www.metaweb.com/wiki/wiki.phtml?title=Metaweb:faction en:Metaweb:faction]. Consumerium and OurAnswer have more need to identify factions than Metaweb, so we may lead them in this regard.''

''See [http://recyclopedia.info/wiki/wiki.phtml?title=Recyclopedia:faction en:Recyclopedia:faction] and [http://recyclopedia.info/wiki/wiki.phtml?title=Recyclopedia:direct_democracy en:Recyclopedia:direct_democracy] for a proposal to deal much more effectively with [[community point of view]] bias.''

Faction

2004-06-03T16:43:18Z

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"I'll find a day to massacre them all, and raze their '''faction''' and their family..." - William Shakespeare, in Titus Andronicus

One good [[user-land]] definition of a '''faction''' is "those who disagree violently with others, but only non-violently with each other."

In [[wiki management]], a '''faction''' is a '''mandatory clique''' to deal with [[alleged and collective identity]] problems that can't otherwise be sorted out without serious [[privacy]] problems, e.g. authorizing [[outing]]. The [[Wikipedia Red Faction]] is the most obvious declared public example.

The difference between a faction and an [[interwiki identity standard]] is that you yourself decide to assert a common identity with the latter, but with a faction, it would be others telling you "please go deal with "others of your kind" and come back when we can understand you, if ever." ;-)

Factions already exist as a group of users sharing a single account or using [[anonymous proxy]] services to reuse [[IP number]]s and appear to be just one persistent [[troll]] or something. This can actually work better for some things than any [[permission-based model]], but it gives an edge to those who have figured out how to do it reliably. It also makes it hard for any limits to be put on such activity.

So, there may be user groups that are answerable only to each other and not to the management, which only manages the conflicts between factions, rather like it also tries to stay out of [[conflicts between users]] and just play referee:

A '''faction''' competes with other factions, and has a [[tendency]] to view some things the same way - it may formally cooperate or list some [[values]] or principles. It has its own view of the [[glossary]]. Any [[funded troll]]s advancing a view implies there must be a faction with that view - maybe not one that [[Consumerium:Itself]] can see.

Often it is assigned a colour on the [[political spectrum]].

Factions exist to acknowledge, limit, and channel various aspects of the [[self-interested fork problem]]. By anticipating [[factionally defined]] terms in the [[Consumerium License]], we make it easier for factions to define their own [[Consortium license]] as a sub-license of our own [[parametric license]].

Two factions are currently directly supported by the wiki software itself, those being [[developers]] and [[sysops]]. These have, as a consequence of the software itself, powers to label and identify others as [[vandals]] (those who damage or delete pages or insert erroneous assertions). There are also [[trolls]] (who annoy other users but may be doing so for legitimate political or social reasons, i.e. not simple vandals). ''It is rather hotly contested whether there is any one faction of trolls, whether trolls cooperate in factions already, etc..''

One way or another, like it or not, there is reference to these collective entities in all [[large public wiki]]s, and so there should be some formal support for creating arbitrary factions that actually represent the complexity of the social and political situation around the [[GFDL text corpus]] and the many [[point of view]] and [[user role]] differences involved.

Three models of dealing with this have been proposed, and one attempted:

* A [[GodKing]] who simply serves as the court of last resort, "master of truth and justice" ([[Michel Foucault]]'s term for the role of the Western academic), and is probably trusted by, or is, "the owner of" a [[GFDL corpus access provider]]. This is used at [[Wikimedia]]. It has had some success in getting a lot of text contributed. It seems to be less successful in getting rid of [[systemic bias]] or removing irreponsible sysops. Also, few GodKings speak every natural language! Some suggest that a GodKing doing nothing is one of the best models, called lazy tyranny, and that it is inaction rather than action that has led to the success of Wikipedia so far.

* A [[faction system]] modelled on [[representative democracy]] as carried out in all democracies, where an edit stands or falls based on the willingness of some substantial faction of like-minded users to support it. These compete with other factions in a [[power structure]] to contain the more bureaucratic and police-like [[sysop power structure]]. This seems to have potential to simplify debate on extremely contentious issues in the same way that parties do so in countries.

::This is the proposal that probably most suits [[Consumerium:Itself]].

* A [[phyle]] system similar to that described by [[Neal Stephenson]] in his book [[The Diamond Age]]. As Metaweb is overtly an implementation of the [[Young Lady's Illustrated Primer]] from that same book, it seems entirely likely and useful that it would attempt to implement this variation of the faction. A phyle differs from a faction in various ways but mostly that it is defines an [[etiquette]] of its own and discourages informal interaction with those of other phyles, and typically takes revenge in extralegal ways if it is seriously offended (unlike a faction which is expected to work through some common bureaucratic or electoral process). See [[Metaweb:phyle]] for more details on this.

::Because it implies Neal Stephenson's model, Metaweb will likely move in this direction, and attempt to model Stephenson's phyles as factions instead of letting them develop directly from [[politics as usual]].

''See [[Talk:faction]] for extensive discussions. It will be hard to agree on one definition of faction, so please review [[glossary]] in detail to see what you think of those generic ideas, and how a faction might define a lot of things differently.''

''See [http://www.ouranswer.org/wiki/index.php/OurAnswer:faction en:OurAnswer:faction] for a similar '''faction''' system for a highly political project. [[Disinfopedia]], also very politically focused, is declining for failing to have such a system.''

''See also [http://www.metaweb.com/wiki/wiki.phtml?title=Metaweb:faction en:Metaweb:faction]. Consumerium and OurAnswer have more need to identify factions than Metaweb, so we may lead them in this regard.''

''See [http://recyclopedia.info/wiki/wiki.phtml?title=Recyclopedia:faction en:Recyclopedia:faction] and [http://recyclopedia.info/wiki/wiki.phtml?title=Recyclopedia:direct_democracy en:Recyclopedia:direct_democracy] for a proposal to deal much more effectively with [[community point of view]] bias.''

Trolls

2004-06-03T16:31:48Z

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Policy

2004-06-03T16:26:07Z

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Rather than apply some "absolute-sounding [[ethic]]" (even such a seemingly open and anarchically benevolent one as "[[troll-friendly]]") to develop any Consumerium policy, it seems advisable to rely mostly or only on what [[Consumerium:itself]], says about its own purpose and mission. Then the items which are very widely shared, or clearly undesirable, can be listed as specific items of standing policy, or, rejected and listed under [[what Consumerium is not]].

This method would seem to have [[bottom-up authoritative integrity]] as it does not rely on any pre-existing [[ethical code]] or [[wiki ontology]] that is imposed or defined by anyone other than the ordinary participant.

If successful, this form of policy [[bootstrap]] would prove that it is quite possible to function without a [[GodKing]] or even a [[representative democracy]] model, though some [[sysop power structure]]/[[bureaucracy]] and [[faction]]/[[polity]] should be probably prepared to help any [[users in conflict]] as they work towards developing their progressive fiqh, er, policy. ;-)

Recycling and waste disposal

2004-06-03T16:12:59Z

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== Introduction ==

Recycling is not the ideal way to reduce waste. [[Reuse]] (see [[modular hardware]] in particular) is better and more [[nature friendliness|nature friendly]]. And [[material conservation]], which includes designing things to go more slowly [[obsolete]], is better yet. And requiring [[product take-back]] by the manufacturer puts the responsibility for this exactly where it belongs, where the design and modularity can really be dealt with, and, where an [[industrial ecology]] can evolve to do it better and use '''waste as a resource.'''

However, recycling is a very good starting point for gathering and dispensing important information since the better knowledge people have on how recycling works the more likely is that they will do it and the better they can help the people working for the recycling industry such as collectors and processors. Working together we can make recycling more pleasant and efficient. And, we can exploit the opportunities that manufacturers fail to take for themselves.

In theory, recycling would be a continuing reuse of materials for the same purpose, but in practice much recycling extends the useful life of a material, but in a less versatile form. For example, as paper is recycled, the fibers shorten, making it less useful for higher grade papers. Other materials can suffer from contamination, making them unsuitable for food packaging.

Recycling information is very location sensitive since the state of recycling systems vary highly from place to place, but it's a good starting place. We can work from recycling and correct [[waste disposal]] bacwards up the consumption chain without getting engulfed in a swamp of lies right in the begining.

==Recycling==
=== Well organized recycling ===

Well organized recycling takes care of the separation and correct routing of the following [[packaging]] materials and '''informs the public about the recycling process''' e.g. If some beverage cartons are recycled the [[consumer]]s preparations for the process may vary on the process they are instigating. If the cartons get burned then cleanliness of the is mostly a question of the working place comfort of the people working for the process ie. well washed cartons don't smell so rotten.

=== Paper ===
There are many different classes of papers in high resolution recycling. Office paper (print outs) are different from magazine papers and so on. This furhter separation of paper into different bins is done somewhere and somewhere it's not, but we should work to make it more available as all recycling

*Small metals such as magazine or tabloid binders are not a big problem since they can be detected and removed by machines in the processing.
*Plastic and glues from envelopes are more of a problem in the recycling process. Someone with more knowledge on this could helpfully write something here.

=== Glass recycling ===
Effective recycling of glass (mostly bottles currently) relies on a refund system where a small refund is paid for the return of the package to the producer for reuse after it has been cleaned and checked to be in a functional condition.

Also recycling glass containers without using them again is useful though if the glass is broken and crushed in the process to just create more [[raw material]]. Though this consues much more energy as the glass is melted once again

=== Metals recycling ===
Again here there are many resolution levels. Not knowing about the technology in this area I'm not very equiped to write anything about this. Different metals have different prices and different [[raw material]] extraction costs so that could be used as guideline.

Open questions:
*How does plastic, rubber or paper that is attached to some metal surface affect the usability of the metal?

=== Biowaste ===
Running an private biowaste recycling facility or compost as it's called you might have noticed some things like citrus fruit peels compost quite slowly compared to say some other fruit leftovers.

In centralized biowaste management this might not be such an big issue due to the longer time horizon of the activity. Drying biowaste before you put it into the recycling bin helps you avoid fungus growth allowing you to take it out less frequently and also makes the job of the collector nicer

=== Packaging cartons and cardboard ===
These are often made from recycled paper and can be used to make more cardboard.

----

==Waste disposal==

===Hazardous waste===

Proper dealing with hazardous waste is a very location specific issue. In developed countries there are often arrangements that the companies that sell products containing hazardous waste are also responsible for accepting and managing the handling of hazardous waste, such as batteries, chemicals, pharmaceutical products, freons and machinery oils

===Other waste===

[[Accounting standard]]s that deal properly with waste are based on [[ISO 14000]]. [[ISO 19011]] is the first real standard here. But it doesn't deal with [[natural capital]] as well as it could, nor all the [[styles of capital]].
----
==See also:==
*[[Recyclability]]
*[[Packaging]]
----
==External links==
* [http://www.channel1.com/users/dkesh/consumerpedia/index.php/Reduce_Reuse_and_Recycling_information Consumerpedia] for recycling links, detailed information for UK and US

Sysop vandalism

2004-06-03T16:06:22Z

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'''Sysop vandalism''' is degrading the quality of a [[blog]], [[newsgroup]] or [[wiki]] for reasons that have nothing to do with the objective of the project or the mandate of the group. It occurs frequently on Wikipedia and Disinfopedia - it is worst on the latter where sysops tend to delete things with no process at all, and ignore the [[votes for deletion]] process that non-sysops are required to go through. ''This is a very severe long-term problem and plays a major role in many [[worst cases]] visible on other public wikis.''

Such vandalism is surprisingly common: Wikipedia permits and encourages sysop vandalism with the universal excuse that "[[trolls]]" were responsible for the edits, and that somehow they will be discouraged by being "punished" somehow - this idea that [[punishment works]] is part of a [[carceral state]] metaphor. This is the basic [[conceptual metaphor]] of Wikipedia and other wikis that insist one [[use real names]] (and thus be subject to offline abuse by sysops and their friends). There is no definition of the hated class of [[trolls]]other than by the very [[sysop]]s who exclude them, and the [[developer]]s who provide features to do so. This is the first step towards a [[permission-based model]] and there may be no way to avoid imposing [[hard security]] if this path is taken by developers.

These problems are made much worse by [[permanent sysop status]] and a model where one pays no price and loses no status even for the reversion of edits which are deemed ultimately constructive. Such behavior is certain to drive off the best contributors, but to serve the sysops' purpose of "converting" the board or wiki into a [[virtual community]] only for their own friends.

The most common sysop vandalism is [[ad hominem delete]] or [[ad hominem revert]] of legitimate facts or analysis, or fair comment, simply "because that user is a troll", whatever that means. This is enabled by the infamous "rule 6" of the [[Wikipedia:candidates for speedy deletion]] page, which remains despite being hotly contested by all who understand [[systemic bias]]. This policy is for the convenience of the sysops, and not the users. Users of course expect all information that advances the mission of the wiki to be available, at the very least in the older versions, and the GFDL seems in spirit at least to require this, in its [[attribution]] terms, in its requirement that modifications be [[share-alike]], and its assumption that some [[moral rights]] apply (like retrieving the source text of your own article, or indeed any article with "no [[technical barrier]]s", i.e. no [[IP block]], no [[MySQL]]).

Typically such vandalism is a symptom of [[conflicts between users]] in which the sysop is not neutral, that is, they wish to encourage one contributor and discourage another. They abuse their sysop powers by banning "those who their friends do not like", and eliminating valid contributions towards the goals. There may be cases where this is valid, i.e. someone irreplaceable has made clear that they will not participate if someone else is tolerated. Unless the medium has a formal [[power structure]], e.g. it's a [[political party]] [[large public wiki]] governed by the policies of that party and its officers, such decisions are almost always either "sysop instinct" or [[GodKing]] choices.

A specific [[sysop power structure]] may be required to reduce such vandalism.

A related issue is [[sysop vigilantiism]] which is not necessarily vandalism, but does subvert [[due process]] and degrade trust in the [[power structure]].

Metaweb

2004-06-03T15:59:53Z

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'''Metaweb''' is visible at http://www.metaweb.com

It is an experimental wiki that may become a [[large public wiki]]. Like [[Consumerium]] it is using the [[mediawiki]] software in its R&D phase - and also like Consumerium it intends to create tools to work with material that is in some [[Wikitext standard]] prototype format with well developed multi-language conventions, most likely based on that now used in [[Wikipedia]].

It is very clear that they intend NOT to use mediawiki or perl exclusively, or maybe at all, in the long term - they have defined an [http://www.metaweb.com/wiki/wiki.phtml?title=Metaweb:intermediate_page intermediate page format] which is explicitly designed for their own custom software to suck in and generate a [[semantic web]]. Which is something the [[Signal Wiki]] (a semantic web itself, segmented maybe by [[faction]]) must be able to do to the [[Research Wiki]] as a pre-step to affecting the [[Consumerium buying signal]]. So their ultimate solution might also be ours, if we can co-operate with them early enough and use the same tools base.

A first step to this might be to simply adopt a close enough variation of their intermediate page format (with different section titles probably, we don't want a "Stephensonia" section) that we can use their tools here with few adaptations. ''See [[Consumerium:intermediate page format]] for the abstract, and [[Consumerium:intermediate page]] for lists of types of such pages here.''

They are also seemingly taking the lead in thinking about how [[wikitext standard|raw wikitext]] and an arbitrary [[XML DTD]] like [[ConsuML]] can be combined and translated into an XML-like semantic web. An [[XML dump]] might not be page by page and strictly marked up for style, but, might actually be whole topic areas at once, or all [[factionally defined]] terms unique to one [[faction]] in our application. Being able perhaps to re-integrate the semantic web after multiple parties have edited the different factional sections independently... all up for grabs. Again, we should follow their lead, as this is what they plan to do in general.

It is not clear how they plan to deal with licensing, but they are presently [[GFDL]] and seem to be quite aware that [[mediawiki]] isn't capable of really implementing this license, nor supporting advanced GFDL capabilities like [[Invariant Section]]s that would be required for any kind of certification or validation of article versions. [[GetWiki]] may be better, but it's not clear.

The project includes some major brains like [[Danny Hillis]] and [[Neal Stephenson]], and seems [[troll friendly]] enough at the moment to make it possible to at least introduce the correct bridging ideas into both projects.

As Neal Stephenson expalins:

:''"My own view of the Metaweb is pretty straightforward: I don't think that the Internet, as it currently exists, does a very good job of explaining things to people. It is great for selling stuff, distributing news and dirty pictures, and a few other things. But when you need to get a good explanation of something, whether it is a scientific principle, a bit of gardening advice, or how to change a tire, you have to sift through a vast number of pages to find the one that gives you the explanation that is right for you. Generally this is not a problem with the explanations themselves. On the contrary, it seems as though a lot of people like to explain things on the Internet, and some of them are quite good at it. The problem lies in how these explanations are organized." ''

Metaweb cooperates with other [[GFDL text corpus]] services, but has a specific focus on Neal Stephenson's ideas. Therefore some concepts like the [[faction]] will often have other names, like the [[phyle]] which is named for a faction-like concept in Stephenson's work. Such differences are noted as [[Metaweb: Stephensonia]].

See [[wikitext standard]], [[interwiki link standard]], [[interwiki identity standard]] and [[standard wiki URI]] for other potential areas of technology synergy. Metaweb being sponsored by [[Danny Hillis]], it has great potential to advance the state of the art in wiki [[text corpus]] management, starting with the [[GFDL text corpus]].

Metaweb

2004-06-03T15:58:40Z

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'''Metaweb''' is visible at http://www.metaweb.com

It is an experimental wiki that may become a [[large public wiki]]. Like [[Consumerium]] it is using the [[mediawiki]] software in its R&D phase - and also like Consumerium it intends to create tools to work with material that is in some [[Wikitext standard]] prototype format with well developed multi-language conventions, most likely based on that now used in [[Wikipedia]].

It is very clear that they intend NOT to use mediawiki or perl exclusively, or maybe at all, in the long term - they have defined an [http://www.metaweb.com/wiki/wiki.phtml?title=Metaweb:intermediate_page intermediate page format] which is explicitly designed for their own custom software to suck in and generate a [[semantic web]]. Which is something the [[Signal Wiki]] (a semantic web itself, segmented maybe by [[faction]]) must be able to do to the [[Research Wiki]] as a pre-step to affecting the [[Consumerium buying signal]]. So their ultimate solution might also be ours, if we can co-operate with them early enough and use the same tools base.

A first step to this might be to simply adopt a close enough variation of their intermediate page format (with different section titles probably, we don't want a "Stephensonia" section) that we can use their tools here with few adaptations. ''See [[Consumerium:intermediate page format]] for the abstract, and [[Consumerium:intermediate page]] for lists of types of such pages here.''

They are also seemingly taking the lead in thinking about how [[wikitext standard|raw wikitext]] and an arbitrary [[XML DTD]] like [[ConsuML]] can be combined and translated into an XML-like semantic web. An [[XML dump]] might not be page by page and strictly marked up for style, but, might actually be whole topic areas at once, or all [[factionally defined]] terms unique to one [[faction]] in our application. Being able perhaps to re-integrate the semantic web after multiple parties have edited the different factional sections independently... all up for grabs. Again, we should follow their lead, as this is what they plan to do in general.

It is not clear how they plan to deal with licensing, but they are presently [[GFDL]] and seem to be quite aware that [[mediawiki]] isn't capable of really implementing this license, nor supporting advanced GFDL capabilities like [[Invariant Section]]s that would be required for any kind of certification or validation of article versions. [[GetWiki]] may be better, but it's not clear.

The project includes some major brains like [[Danny Hillis]] and [[Neal Stephenson]], and seems [[troll friendly]] enough at the moment to make it possible to at least introduce the correct bridging ideas into both projects.

As Neal Stephenson expalins:

:''"My own view of the Metaweb is pretty straightforward: I don't think that the Internet, as it currently exists, does a very good job of explaining things to people. It is great for selling stuff, distributing news and dirty pictures, and a few other things. But when you need to get a good explanation of something, whether it is a scientific principle, a bit of gardening advice, or how to change a tire, you have to sift through a vast number of pages to find the one that gives you the explanation that is right for you. Generally this is not a problem with the explanations themselves. On the contrary, it seems as though a lot of people like to explain things on the Internet, and some of them are quite good at it. The problem lies in how these explanations are organized." ''

Metaweb cooperates with other [[GFDL text corpus]] services, but has a specific focus on Neal Stephenson's ideas. Therefore some concepts like the [[faction]] will often have other names, like the [[phyle]] which is named for a faction-like concept in Stephenson's work. Such differences are noted as [[Metaweb: Stephensonia]].

Metaweb being sponsored by Danny Hillis, it has great potential to advance the state of the art in wiki [[text corpus]] management, starting with the [[GFDL text corpus]].

Metaweb

2004-06-03T15:57:39Z

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'''Metaweb''' is visible at http://www.metaweb.com

It is an experimental wiki that may become a [[large public wiki]]. Like [[Consumerium]] it is using the [[mediawiki]] software in its R&D phase - and also like Consumerium it intends to create tools to work with material that is in some [[Wikitext standard]] prototype format with well developed multi-language conventions, most likely based on that now used in [[Wikipedia]].

It is very clear that they intend NOT to use mediawiki or perl exclusively, or maybe at all, in the long term - they have defined an [http://www.metaweb.com/wiki/wiki.phtml?title=Metaweb:intermediate_page intermediate page format] which is explicitly designed for their own custom software to suck in and generate a [[semantic web]]. Which is something the [[Signal Wiki]] (a semantic web itself, segmented maybe by [[faction]]) must be able to do to the [[Research Wiki]] as a pre-step to affecting the [[Consumerium buying signal]]. So their ultimate solution might also be ours, if we can co-operate with them early enough and use the same tools base.

A first step to this might be to simply adopt a close enough variation of their intermediate page format (with different section titles probably, we don't want a "Stephensonia" section) that we can use their tools here with few adaptations. ''See [[Consumerium:intermediate page format]] for the abstract, and [[Consumerium:intermediate page]] for lists of types of such pages here.''

They are also seemingly taking the lead in thinking about how [[wikitext standard|raw wikitext]] and an arbitrary [[XML DTD]] like [[ConsuML]] can be combined and translated into an XML-like semantic web. An [[XML dump]] might not be page by page and strictly marked up for style, but, might actually be whole topic areas at once, or all [[factionally defined]] terms unique to one [[faction]] in our application. Being able perhaps to re-integrate the semantic web after multiple parties have edited the different factional sections independently... all up for grabs. Again, we should follow their lead, as this is what they plan to do in general.

It is not clear how they plan to deal with licensing, but they are presently [[GFDL]] and seem to be quite aware that [[mediawiki]] isn't capable of really implementing this license, nor supporting advanced GFDL capabilities like [[Invariant Section]]s that would be required for any kind of certification or validation of article versions. [[GetWiki]] may be better, but it's not clear.

The project includes some major brains like [[Danny Hillis]] and [[Neal Stephenson]], and seems [[troll friendly]] enough at the moment to make it possible to at least introduce the correct bridging ideas into both projects.

As Neal Stephenson expalins:

:''"My own view of the Metaweb is pretty straightforward: I don't think that the Internet, as it currently exists, does a very good job of explaining things to people. It is great for selling stuff, distributing news and dirty pictures, and a few other things. But when you need to get a good explanation of something, whether it is a scientific principle, a bit of gardening advice, or how to change a tire, you have to sift through a vast number of pages to find the one that gives you the explanation that is right for you. Generally this is not a problem with the explanations themselves. On the contrary, it seems as though a lot of people like to explain things on the Internet, and some of them are quite good at it. The problem lies in how these explanations are organized." ''

Metaweb cooperates with other [[GFDL text corpus services]], but has a specific focus on Neal Stephenson's ideas. Therefore some concepts like the [[faction]] will often have other names, like the [[phyle]] which is named for a faction-like concept in Stephenson's work. Such differences are noted as [[Metaweb: Stephensonia]].

Metaweb being sponsored by Danny Hillis, it has great potential to advance the state of the art in wiki [[text corpus]] management, starting with the [[GFDL text corpus]].

Consumerium:Consumerium Itself

2004-06-03T15:44:52Z

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'''Consumerium, itself''' makes claims about [[Consumerium]], i.e. what it "is" or "is for":

*A medium for making [[Opinion Wiki|distribution]] and [[Content Wiki|acquisition]] of information on [[moral purchasing]] more widely and easily accessible
*A medium to enable a paradigm shift in shopping from affective shopping decisions based on [[advertising|illusions]] to affective shopping decisions based in [[features|information]]
*A medium to make [[Advertisement Video|audio-visual marketing tools]] available to smaller businesses then previously possible.
*A medium to provide [[consumer]]s with [[work description]]s so that if interested a consumer may familiarize her/himself with what kind of work goes into some [[product]]
*An aid to [[transparency]]
*An aid to target R&D and production more precisely due to incresed [[feedback|flow of information]]
*A [[glossary]] of [[Consumerium Concepts|concepts applicable to all the above]]
*A [[Consumerium governance]] protocol to keep the above fair.
*A [[Consumerium Governance Organization]] to keep the protocol fair.

These claims about itself guide the project. If a claim is made in even one place off to the side, it is important, and should be added to the above. If the claim is wrong, change it in the article it came from, and THEN change it here.

Mention of '''Consumerium, itself''' in articles requires some standards to ensure:

*Text need not change when moved elsewhere in the [[GFDL text corpus]]. If we refer to this project in the third person, as Consumerium, then the text stands up better when moved elsewhere in the GFDL text corpus. This should be a standard everywhere '''Consumerium, itself''' is mentioned within.

*Statements about "Consumerium is...", or "Consumerium does..." can be more easily found, closely examined, and disputed (by [[faction]]s or otherwise). This is absolutely necessary to achieve [[deliberative democracy]], [[design reflexivity]] and some [[positive brand management]] - we would not want strange claims or assertions about its purpose or character to go unexamined, and we would want to support any desirable role or purpose. This is simpler if 'what links here' is a comprehensive list. Accordingly, any mention that affects identity or defines or limits a purpose should be to Consudev:Itself not Consumerium, to distinguish from casual mentions that do not make any such claims (e.g. what "Consumerium says..." about something that is not itself).

*It provides a positive counterpoint to [[What Consumerium is not]], which is the negation of [[Consumerium:Itself]]. But by definition can't define any progressive or positive mission! It's easier to keep "not" updated if "is and does" are up to date.

*It reminds people to update the [[Main Page]] occassionally and keep up to date with the most effective terminology to describe concepts under discussion.

[[What Consumerium is not]] may actually be more important to understand for daily operating and governance decisions.

Faction

2004-06-03T15:38:16Z

Support a unified GFDL Corpus:

"I'll find a day to massacre them all, and raze their '''faction''' and their family..." - William Shakespeare, in Titus Andronicus

One good [[user-land]] definition of a '''faction''' is "those who disagree violently with others, but only non-violently with each other."

In [[wiki management]], a '''faction''' is a '''mandatory clique''' to deal with [[alleged and collective identity]] problems that can't otherwise be sorted out without serious [[privacy]] problems, e.g. authorizing [[outing]]. The [[Wikipedia Red Faction]] is the most obvious declared public example.

Factions already exist as a group of users sharing a single account or using [[anonymous proxy]] services to reuse [[IP number]]s and appear to be just one persistent [[troll]] or something. This can actually work better for some things than any [[permission-based model]], but it gives an edge to those who have figured out how to do it reliably. It also makes it hard for any limits to be put on such activity.

So, there may be user groups that are answerable only to each other and not to the management, which only manages the conflicts between factions, rather like it also tries to stay out of [[conflicts between users]] and just play referee:

A '''faction''' competes with other factions, and has a [[tendency]] to view some things the same way - it may formally cooperate or list some [[values]] or principles. It has its own view of the [[glossary]]. Any [[funded troll]]s advancing a view implies there must be a faction with that view - maybe not one that [[Consumerium:Itself]] can see.

Often it is assigned a colour on the [[political spectrum]].

Factions exist to acknowledge, limit, and channel various aspects of the [[self-interested fork problem]]. By anticipating [[factionally defined]] terms in the [[Consumerium License]], we make it easier for factions to define their own [[Consortium license]] as a sub-license of our own [[parametric license]].

Two factions are currently directly supported by the wiki software itself, those being [[developers]] and [[sysops]]. These have, as a consequence of the software itself, powers to label and identify others as [[vandals]] (those who damage or delete pages or insert erroneous assertions). There are also [[trolls]] (who annoy other users but may be doing so for legitimate political or social reasons, i.e. not simple vandals). ''It is rather hotly contested whether there is any one faction of trolls, whether trolls cooperate in factions already, etc..''

One way or another, like it or not, there is reference to these collective entities in all [[large public wiki]]s, and so there should be some formal support for creating arbitrary factions that actually represent the complexity of the social and political situation around the [[GFDL text corpus]] and the many [[point of view]] and [[user role]] differences involved.

Three models of dealing with this have been proposed, and one attempted:

* A [[GodKing]] who simply serves as the court of last resort, "master of truth and justice" ([[Michel Foucault]]'s term for the role of the Western academic), and is probably trusted by, or is, "the owner of" a [[GFDL corpus access provider]]. This is used at [[Wikimedia]]. It has had some success in getting a lot of text contributed. It seems to be less successful in getting rid of [[systemic bias]] or removing irreponsible sysops. Also, few GodKings speak every natural language! Some suggest that a GodKing doing nothing is one of the best models, called lazy tyranny, and that it is inaction rather than action that has led to the success of Wikipedia so far.

* A [[faction system]] modelled on [[representative democracy]] as carried out in all democracies, where an edit stands or falls based on the willingness of some substantial faction of like-minded users to support it. These compete with other factions in a [[power structure]] to contain the more bureaucratic and police-like [[sysop power structure]]. This seems to have potential to simplify debate on extremely contentious issues in the same way that parties do so in countries.

::This is the proposal that probably most suits [[Consumerium:Itself]].

* A [[phyle]] system similar to that described by [[Neal Stephenson]] in his book [[The Diamond Age]]. As Metaweb is overtly an implementation of the [[Young Lady's Illustrated Primer]] from that same book, it seems entirely likely and useful that it would attempt to implement this variation of the faction. A phyle differs from a faction in various ways but mostly that it is defines an [[etiquette]] of its own and discourages informal interaction with those of other phyles, and typically takes revenge in extralegal ways if it is seriously offended (unlike a faction which is expected to work through some common bureaucratic or electoral process). See [[Metaweb:phyle]] for more details on this.

::Because it implies Neal Stephenson's model, Metaweb will likely move in this direction, and attempt to model Stephenson's phyles as factions instead of letting them develop directly from [[politics as usual]].

''See [[Talk:faction]] for extensive discussions. It will be hard to agree on one definition of faction, so please review [[glossary]] in detail to see what you think of those generic ideas, and how a faction might define a lot of things differently.''

''See [http://www.ouranswer.org/wiki/index.php/OurAnswer:faction en:OurAnswer:faction] for a similar '''faction''' system for a highly political project. [[Disinfopedia]], also very politically focused, is declining for failing to have such a system.''

''See also [http://www.metaweb.com/wiki/wiki.phtml?title=Metaweb:faction en:Metaweb:faction]. Consumerium and OurAnswer have more need to identify factions than Metaweb, so we may lead them in this regard.''

''See [http://recyclopedia.info/wiki/wiki.phtml?title=Recyclopedia:faction en:Recyclopedia:faction] and [http://recyclopedia.info/wiki/wiki.phtml?title=Recyclopedia:direct_democracy en:Recyclopedia:direct_democracy] for a proposal to deal much more effectively with [[community point of view]] bias.''

Faction

2004-06-03T15:37:43Z

Support a unified GFDL Corpus:

"I'll find a day to massacre them all, and raze their '''faction''' and their family..." - William Shakespeare, in Titus Andronicus

One good [[user-land]] definition of a '''faction''' is "those who disagree violently with others, but only non-violently with each other."

In [[wiki management]], a '''faction''' is a '''mandatory clique''' to deal with [[alleged and collective identity]] problems that can't otherwise be sorted out without serious [[privacy]] problems, e.g. authorizing [[outing]]. The [[Wikipedia Red Faction]] is the most obvious declared public example.

Factions already exist as a group of users sharing a single account or using [[anonymous proxy]] services to reuse [[IP number]]s and appear to be just one persistent [[troll]] or something. This can actually work better for some things than any [[permission-based model]], but it gives an edge to those who have figured out how to do it reliably. It also makes it hard for any limits to be put on such activity.

So, there may be user groups that are answerable only to each other and not to the management, which only manages the conflicts between factions, rather like it also tries to stay out of [[conflicts between users]] and just play referee:

A '''faction''' competes with other factions, and has a [[tendency]] to view some things the same way - it may formally cooperate or list some [[values]] or principles. It has its own view of the [[glossary]]. Any [[funded troll]]s advancing a view implies there must be a faction with that view - maybe not one that [[Consumerium:Itself]] can see.

Often it is assigned a colour on the [[political spectrum]].

Factions exist to acknowledge, limit, and channel various aspects of the [[self-interested fork problem]]. By anticipating [[factionally defined]] terms in the [[Consumerium License]], we make it easier for factions to define their own [[Consortium license]] as a sub-license of our own [[parametric license]].

Two factions are currently directly supported by the wiki software itself, those being [[developers]] and [[sysops]]. These have, as a consequence of the software itself, powers to label and identify others as [[vandals]] (those who damage or delete pages or insert erroneous assertions). There are also [[trolls]] (who annoy other users but may be doing so for legitimate political or social reasons, i.e. not simple vandals). ''It is rather hotly contested whether there is any one faction of trolls, whether trolls cooperate in factions already, etc..''

One way or another, like it or not, there is reference to these collective entities in all [[large public wiki]]s, and so there should be some formal support for creating arbitrary factions that actually represent the complexity of the social and political situation around the [[GFDL text corpus]] and the many [[point of view]] and [[user role]] differences involved.

Three models of dealing with this have been proposed, and one attempted:

* A [[GodKing]] who simply serves as the court of last resort, "master of truth and justice" ([[Michel Foucault]]'s term for the role of the Western academic), and is probably trusted by, or is, "the owner of" a [[GFDL corpus access provider]]. This is used at [[Wikimedia]]. It has had some success in getting a lot of text contributed. It seems to be less successful in getting rid of [[systemic bias]] or removing irreponsible sysops. Also, few GodKings speak every natural language! Some suggest that a GodKing doing nothing is one of the best models, called lazy tyranny, and that it is inaction rather than action that has led to the success of Wikipedia so far.

* A [[faction system]] modelled on [[representative democracy]] as carried out in all democracies, where an edit stands or falls based on the willingness of some substantial faction of like-minded users to support it. These compete with other factions in a [[power structure]] to contain the more bureaucratic and police-like [[sysop power structure]]. This seems to have potential to simplify debate on extremely contentious issues in the same way that parties do so in countries.

::This is the proposal that probably most suits [[Consumerium:Itself]].

* A [[phyle]] system similar to that described by [[Neal Stephenson]] in his book [[The Diamond Age]]. As Metaweb is overtly an implementation of the [[Young Lady's Illustrated Primer]] from that same book, it seems entirely likely and useful that it would attempt to implement this variation of the faction. A phyle differs from a faction in various ways but mostly that it is defines an [[etiquette]] of its own and discourages informal interaction with those of other phyles, and typically takes revenge in extralegal ways if it is seriously offended (unlike a faction which is expected to work through some common bureaucratic or electoral process). See [[Metaweb:phyle]] for more details on this.

::Because it implies Neal Stephenson's model, Metaweb will likely move in this direction, and attempt to model Stephenson's phyles as factions instead of letting them develop directly from [[politics as usual]].

''See [[Talk:faction]] for extensive discussions. It will be hard to agree on one definition of faction, so please review [[glossary]] in detail to see what you think of those generic ideas, and how a faction might define a lot of things differently.''

''See [http://www.ouranswer.org/wiki/index.php/OurAnswer:faction en:OurAnswer:faction] for a similar '''faction''' system for a highly political project. [[Disinfopedia]], also very politically focused, is declining for failing to have such a system.''

''See also [http://www.metaweb.com/wiki/wiki.phtml?title=Metaweb:faction en:Metaweb:faction]. Consumerium and OurAnswer have more need to identify factions than Metaweb, so we may lead them in this regard.''

''See [http://recyclopedia.info/wiki/wiki.phtml?title=Recyclopedia:faction en:Recyclopedia:faction] and [http://recyclopedia.info/wiki/wiki.phtml?title=Recyclopedia:direct_democracy en:Recyclopedia:direct_democracy] for a proposal to deal much more effectively with [[community point of view]] bias.''

Faction

2004-06-03T15:36:34Z

Support a unified GFDL Corpus:

"I'll find a day to massacre them all, and raze their '''faction''' and their family..." - William Shakespeare, in Titus Andronicus

One good [[user-land]] definition of a '''faction''' is "those who disagree violently with others, but only non-violently with each other."

In [[wiki management]], a '''faction''' is a '''mandatory clique''' to deal with [[alleged and collective identity]] problems that can't otherwise be sorted out without serious [[privacy]] problems, e.g. authorizing [[outing]]. The [[Wikipedia Red Faction]] is the most obvious declared public example.

Factions already exist as a group of users sharing a single account or using [[anonymous proxy]] services to reuse [[IP number]]s and appear to be just one persistent [[troll]] or something. This can actually work better for some things than any [[permission-based model]], but it gives an edge to those who have figured out how to do it reliably. It also makes it hard for any limits to be put on such activity.

So, there may be user groups that are answerable only to each other and not to the management, which only manages the conflicts between factions, rather like it also tries to stay out of [[conflicts between users]] and just play referee:

A '''faction''' competes with other factions, and has a [[tendency]] to view some things the same way - it may formally cooperate or list some [[values]] or principles. It has its own view of the [[glossary]]. Any [[funded troll]]s advancing a view implies there must be a faction with that view - maybe not one that [[Consumerium:Itself]] can see.

Often it is assigned a colour on the [[political spectrum]].

Factions exist to acknowledge, limit, and channel various aspects of the [[self-interested fork problem]]. By anticipating [[factionally defined]] terms in the [[Consumerium License]], we make it easier for factions to define their own [[Consortium license]] as a sub-license of our own [[parametric license]].

Two factions are currently directly supported by the wiki software itself, those being [[developers]] and [[sysops]]. These have, as a consequence of the software itself, powers to label and identify others as [[vandals]] (those who damage or delete pages or insert erroneous assertions). There are also [[trolls]] (who annoy other users but may be doing so for legitimate political or social reasons, i.e. not simple vandals). ''It is rather hotly contested whether there is any one faction of trolls, whether trolls cooperate in factions already, etc..''

One way or another, like it or not, there is reference to these collective entities in all [[large public wiki]]s, and so there should be some formal support for creating arbitrary factions that actually represent the complexity of the social and political situation around the [[GFDL text corpus]] and the many [[point of view]] and [[user role]] differences involved.

Three models of dealing with this have been proposed, and one attempted:

* A [[GodKing]] who simply serves as the court of last resort, "master of truth and justice" ([[Michel Foucault]]'s term for the role of the Western academic), and is probably trusted by, or is, "the owner of" a [[GFDL corpus access provider]]. This is used at [[Wikimedia]]. It has had some success in getting a lot of text contributed. It seems to be less successful in getting rid of [[systemic bias]] or removing irreponsible sysops. Also, few GodKings speak every natural language! Some suggest that a GodKing doing nothing is one of the best models, called lazy tyranny, and that it is inaction rather than action that has led to the success of Wikipedia so far.

* A [[faction system]] modelled on [[representative democracy]] as carried out in all democracies, where an edit stands or falls based on the willingness of some substantial faction of like-minded users to support it. These compete with other factions in a [[power structure]] to contain the more bureaucratic and police-like [[sysop power structure]]. This seems to have potential to simplify debate on extremely contentious issues in the same way that parties do so in countries.

:''''''This is the proposal that probably most suits Consumerium.''''''

* A [[phyle]] system similar to that described by [[Neal Stephenson]] in his book [[The Diamond Age]]. As Metaweb is overtly an implementation of the [[Young Lady's Illustrated Primer]] from that same book, it seems entirely likely and useful that it would attempt to implement this variation of the faction. A phyle differs from a faction in various ways but mostly that it is defines an [[etiquette]] of its own and discourages informal interaction with those of other phyles, and typically takes revenge in extralegal ways if it is seriously offended (unlike a faction which is expected to work through some common bureaucratic or electoral process). See [[Metaweb:phyle]] for more details on this.

:''''''Because it implies Neal Stephenson's model, Metaweb will likely move in this direction, and attempt to model Stephenson's phyles as factions instead of letting them develop directly from [[politics as usual]].''''''

''See [[Talk:faction]] for extensive discussions. It will be hard to agree on one definition of faction, so please review [[glossary]] in detail to see what you think of those generic ideas, and how a faction might define a lot of things differently.''

''See [http://www.ouranswer.org/wiki/index.php/OurAnswer:faction en:OurAnswer:faction] for a similar '''faction''' system for a highly political project. [[Disinfopedia]], also very politically focused, is declining for failing to have such a system.''

''See also [http://www.metaweb.com/wiki/wiki.phtml?title=Metaweb:faction en:Metaweb:faction]. Consumerium and OurAnswer have more need to identify factions than Metaweb, so we may lead them in this regard.''

''See [http://recyclopedia.info/wiki/wiki.phtml?title=Recyclopedia:faction en:Recyclopedia:faction] and [http://recyclopedia.info/wiki/wiki.phtml?title=Recyclopedia:direct_democracy en:Recyclopedia:direct_democracy] for a proposal to deal much more effectively with [[community point of view]] bias.''

Wikitext standard

2004-05-29T18:21:45Z

Support a unified GFDL Corpus:

[[Consumerium]] may have to lead the '''wikitext standard''' in some ways: [[authentication]], [[ecoregion]] tags, [[capital]] commitments, and [[ownership]] come to mind, maybe [[tendency]] and [[faction]] attribution. None of this is very clear yet.

What is clear already is that asking text searches and poorly standardized tagging isn't going to work, when we want very reliable information to be conveyed to the [[point of purchase]] from the [[friendly troll]].

See [[interwiki link standard]], [[standard wiki URI]] and [[interwiki identity standard]] for related issues that apply especially within the [[GFDL text corpus]].

See [http://www.metaweb.com/wiki/wiki.phtml?title=wikitext_standard en: Metaweb: wikitext standard] for a more abstract discussion of how this may evolve and which online service is doing what first or best, and [http://www.wikinfo.org/wiki.phtml?title=wikitext_standard en: Wikinfo: wikitext standard] for discussion of their integration in a [[GetWiki]] context.

See [http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/wikitext_standard en: Meta-Wikipedia: wikitext standard] for a more down to earth discussion of what can be done right now.

See [[Consumerium Concepts]] for some things that may need to be directly part of the standard.

See also [http://interwiki.wiki.taoriver.net/moin.cgi/WikiPageInterchange WikiPageInterchange] on [http://intcomm.wiki.taoriver.net/moin.cgi/RecentChanges IntComm wiki].

Talk:GFDL corpus access provider

2004-05-29T18:07:12Z

Support a unified GFDL Corpus:

:Side note:

:Many of these issues are not unique to wiki. We need Public Internet standards for document exchange and identity. For example, a blogger may want to copy an entry out of their blog into a wiki. Or vice versa. Access to the document itself is interesting, and should be possible by multiple methods.

''from: [http://wikilegal.wiki.taoriver.net/moin.cgi/CorpusAccessProvider CorpusAccessProvider]''