Consumerium development wiki - User contributions [en]

Interesting projects

2004-09-05T23:02:10Z

Trolling Consumerium: Infoshop Wiki (GFDL)

==Not-for-profit Projects==

If you are not sure if a new link belongs here, please check '''[[Links|Other Links]]''' for other alternatives.

See first the [[essential projects]] that are doing what we are doing, and that we have little choice but to work with and improve.

==possible sources of [[Research Wiki]] input ==

===[[GFDL corpus]]===

*[[CorpKnowPedia]] - (Running [[MediaWiki]], under [[GFDL]])

*[[Recyclopedia]] is creating a free and open content encyclopedia of social change, social justice and environmental justice information.

* [[OurAnswer]] is a method for the people to respond to [[business leaders]] and [[politicians]]. -(Running [[MediaWiki]], under [[GFDL]])

* [[Disinfopedia]] is a collaborative project to produce a directory of public relations firms, think tanks, industry-funded organizations and industry-friendly experts that work to influence public opinion and public policy on behalf of corporations, governments and special interests. And yes, it's in the [[GFDL]] part of the world (Running [[MediaWiki]], under [[GFDL]])

*[[Wikipedia]] - The free encyclopedia, all content is under [[GFDL]]. - (Running [[MediaWiki]])

*[[w:Wiktionary|Wiktionary]] - A spin off from wikipedia. The free dictionary and thesaurus in every language if it gets done someday. [[GFDL]] also. Not much happening there now. - (Running [[MediaWiki]], under [[GFDL]])

*http://wikibooks.org - Yet another great idea being put forward by WikiMedia Foundation. Wikibooks is dedicated to developing and disseminating free, open content textbooks and other classroom texts - (Running [[MediaWiki]], under [[GFDL]])

* [[Cookbook]] - One of the wikibooks that is of particular interest is the cookbook. Includes information on [[vegan]] and [[vegetarian]] food as well as other moral purchasing. - (Running [[MediaWiki]], under [[GFDL]])

*[http://www.infoshop.org/octo/matrix/index.php/Main_Page The Matrix: An anti-capitalist database] - [[GFDL]], [[MediaWiki]]

*http://veganwiki.org/ - for our vegan friends, currently only in German, but English, French and Spanish wikis are being prepared for setup

*[http://www.infoshop.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page Infoshop Open Wiki] - Infoshop.org is a portal linking content on the net of interest to the anarchist and anti-authoritarian community. In the spirit of anarchism, it is a collaborative project that encourages participation and networking of resources. Part of this network is the often updated Infoshop News.

=== not [[GFDL]] ===

* http://www.theyrule.net/ - Topic map style visual presentations of interrelations of [[Companies]] [[Executives]] and stuff in the US mostly. Static mapping so they have an advisory about probably being out-of-date.

* [http://now.ohah.net/en/Earth_Reforesting_System "Earth Reforesting System"] - not sure if this is going to work, but, at least they started with mediawiki, so maybe they are just waiting for others to chip in, just like Consumerium did. Mostly in Japanese.

* http://www.environmentaldirectory.net/ - lists over 13.000 organisations dealing with environmental issues in the US

* http://www.ladywiki.org/ - open public space for exchange & action against (not only sexual) discrimination, public domain

* [http://www.thetransitioner.org TheTransitioner.org] - an attempt to build "a Collective Intelligence economy" and [http://www.thetransitioner.org/wiki/tiki-index.php?page=Open+Source+Money Open Source Money]. They seem to [[User:N8chz|one observer]] fixated on currency issues. - [[Alternative wiki-implementations|TikiWiki]], Copyright unknown
----
==Misc.==

* http://www.aflcio.org/corporateamerica/paywatch/ - Annoy yourself by looking up how much US CEOs' get compensated

* http://www.ipjustice.org A project that lobbies against [[Digital Rights Management]] and misuse of Intellectual Property.

* http://globalgreens.org - mailing lists automatically set up for any Green Party - or other groups obeying [http://globalgreens.info Global Greens Charter]

* http://crit.org - annotation software to 'mark up' any site on the web

* http://smartmobs.com - discussion of mobile technologies for politics

* http://slipperycat.com - attempt to nail down ontology for game business - shows what a simple industry looks like from low level code up to production. - a '''stub''' at the moment

*http://www.2action.com/main.asp - a commercial vendor of [[worn device]] software for meeting and sales support - what does their UI look like? What words mean what? We should always study carefully this kind of example of a decision support system

* [http://trollparty.org/Norway2004 Norway Troll Party]

* http://planetarycitizen.open.ac.uk/ - A network for the Planetary Citizen
: "This project comes out of a vision for a peaceful, sustainable future for the Earth that has been developing in many places. That vision was very evident in the non-governmental side of the World Summit for Sustainable Development (WSSD) in Johannesburg in August/September 2002, in many of the events that were ignored by the mass media."

* [http://www.nooranch.com/synaesmedia/optimaes/optimaes.cgi?HomePage OPTIMAES Wiki (Open Project To Investigate Money And Economic Systems)] - Usemod, public domain

* [http://greeneconomy.org/tiki-index.php The Sustainable economy project] - "... To act as a catalyst towards a global sustainable economy, pulling together many existing groups, projects and initiatives." - Tikiwiki, copyright unknown.

* [http://www.uniteddiversity.com UnitedDiversity]

* [http://www.socialforge.net/tiki-index.php SocialForge.net] - (tikiwiki, apparently GFDL) "It's a free service for everyone wishes to share knowledge and to collaborate to build projects related to:
**[[participative democracy]] ([[direct democracy]], [[consensus method]], [[emergent democracy]], ...);
**[self-governance]]
**[[community]] building
**autonomy, self-reliance
**[[alternative economies]]
**[[sustainable development]]
**[[anti-authoritarism]] in practice
**[[technology]] as a liberation tool"

----
'''See also:'''
* [[Interesting organisations]] - Institutions and organisations that provide [[reference]] or possibly [[content]]
* [[Interesting companies]] - Commercial links
* [[Strange projects]] for amusing, off topic sites

WikiNode

2004-08-19T14:08:26Z

Trolling Consumerium: from interesting projects

Welcome to the consumerium wiki.

Interesting points:
* [[Main Page]]
* [[Article hub]]
* [[Special:Recentchanges]]

Neighborhood wiki:
* Chongqed: [http://wiki.chongqed.org//WikiNode Wiki node]
* CorpKnowPedia: [http://corpknowpedia.org/wiki/index.php/WikiNode Wiki node]
* UnitedDiversity: [http://ud.lir.be/tiki-index.php?page=WikiNode Wiki node]

* OurAnswer: [http://www.ouranswer.org/wiki/index.php/WikiNode Wiki node]
* The Matrix: [http://www.infoshop.org/octo/matrix/index.php/WikiNode Wiki node]
* VeganWiki: [http://de.veganwiki.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl/WikiNode Wiki node]
* The Transitioner: [http://www.thetransitioner.org/wiki/tiki-index.php?page=WikiNode Wiki node]
* GreenEconomy: [http://greeneconomy.org/tiki-index.php?page=WikiNode Wiki node]
* Troll Party: [http://trollparty.org/tiki-index.php?page=WikiNode Wiki node]

WikiNode

2004-08-19T13:59:53Z

Trolling Consumerium: adding some neighborhood wikis

WikiNode

2004-08-19T13:46:20Z

Trolling Consumerium: correcting RC link and adding Article hub; see http://wikinodes.wiki.taoriver.net/moin.cgi/WikiNode for more on WikiNodes

Welcome to the consumerium wiki.

Interesting points:
* [[Article hub]]
* [[Special:Recentchanges]]

Neighborhood wiki:
* Chongqed: [http://wiki.chongqed.org//WikiNode Wiki node]

Wiki spam

2004-07-16T15:43:31Z

Trolling Consumerium:

New troll

2004-07-16T15:40:41Z

Trolling Consumerium:

A '''new troll''' is a user who has gotten into one or more conflicts but is not clearly associated with any [[faction]] yet, or has deliberately denied being representative of any faction. Basically, it's just someone who has been called a "[[troll]]" or otherwise told their point of view is idiosyncratic or invalid, and who has not yet developed any steady allies or collaborators here.

According mostly to [[trolls]], the [[New Troll point of view]] is a real and coherent thing that can be established by [[consensus]] and keep [[large public wiki]]s from freezing into simple cliques of the existing participants. In this [[faction]]al view, the treatment of '''new troll'''s is central to all [[wiki governance]]. This view is strongly opposed to any imposition of [[community point of view]] or trusting any [[neutral point of view]] that the established "community" agrees with. But also there is the view that new trolls are pests and deserve no status or consideration, or that only those who [[use real names]] should get any help or only those who pay to keep things running should be able to edit any disputed article.

==[[Faction]]al views==

===[[Trolls]]===

A '''new troll''' is a user who has gotten into one or more conflicts but is not clearly associated with any [[faction]] yet, or has deliberately denied being representative of any faction.

Although every effort should be made to accomodate their [[New Troll point of view]], in case it is in fact an under-represented or previously excluded view, there must be limits to this, if only to ensure that even more '''new troll'''s continue to arrive and challenge the dominant [[groupthink]]. Therefore it's probably wise to think in terms of the marginal value of accomodating each new troll:

*We want to be just [[troll-friendly]] enough that the ''next'' '''new troll''' feels just as welcome as ''this'' '''new troll'''; [[Consumerium:Policy]] will ideally make each new troll slightly more welcome. Accordingly, it's fair to ask new trolls to make specific accomodations for the next, unknown, troll to arrive, and perhaps to prove worthiness as [[trolls]] by initiating new trolls in the intricacies of faction politics, the vileness of sysops, etc., so as to breed a worthy polity based on dissent and not on any groupthink.

*Accordingly, [[Consumerium:We]] should be able to confidently say that no user arrives without being fully empowered and motivated to join some faction that they themselves find empowering; If they reject the trolls' view, then, they can join some other faction. But in no case are they left entirely alone vs. a [[sysop power structure]].

''Fair? If not why not? How else can [[democracy]] be organized?''

New troll

2004-07-16T15:32:29Z

Trolling Consumerium: from http://www.ouranswer.org/wiki/index.php/OurAnswer:Trolls/New_troll

A '''new troll''' is a user who has gotten into one or more conflicts but is not clearly associated with any [[faction]] yet, or has deliberately denied being representative of any faction. Basically, it's just someone who has been called a "[[troll]]" or otherwise told their point of view is idiosyncratic or invalid, and who has not yet developed any steady allies or collaborators here.

According mostly to [[trolls]], the [[New Troll point of view]] is a real and coherent thing that can be established by [[consensus]] and keep [[large public wiki]]s from freezing into simple cliques of the existing participants. In this [[faction]]al view, the treatment of '''new troll'''s is central to all [[wiki governance]]. This view is strongly opposed to any imposition of [[community point of view]] or trusting any [[neutral point of view]] that the established "community" agrees with.

==Factional views==

===[[Trolls]]===

A '''new troll''' is a user who has gotten into one or more conflicts but is not clearly associated with any [[faction]] yet, or has deliberately denied being representative of any faction.

Although every effort should be made to accomodate their [[New Troll point of view]], in case it is in fact an under-represented or previously excluded view, there must be limits to this, if only to ensure that even more '''new troll'''s continue to arrive and challenge the dominant [[groupthink]]. Therefore it's probably wise to think in terms of the marginal value of accomodating each new troll:

*We want to be just [[troll-friendly]] enough that the ''next'' '''new troll''' feels just as welcome as ''this'' '''new troll'''; [[Consumerium:Policy]] will ideally make each new troll slightly more welcome. Accordingly, it's fair to ask new trolls to make specific accomodations for the next, unknown, troll to arrive, and perhaps to prove worthiness as [[trolls]] by initiating new trolls in the intricacies of faction politics, the vileness of sysops, etc., so as to breed a worthy polity based on dissent and not on any groupthink.

*Accordingly, [[Consumerium:We]] should be able to confidently say that no user arrives without being fully empowered and motivated to join some faction that they themselves find empowering; If they reject the trolls' view, then, they can join some other faction. But in no case are they left entirely alone vs. a [[sysop power structure]].

''Fair? If not why not? How else can [[democracy]] be organized?''

Alleged and collective identity

2004-07-13T23:09:27Z

Trolling Consumerium: GFDL, from http://www.ouranswer.org/wiki/index.php/Alleged_and_collective_identity and http://www.ouranswer.org/wiki/index.php/OurAnswer:Trolls/Alleged_and_collective_identity

'''Alleged and collective identity''' problems plague the Internet. It is very common for unfounded allegations regarding "who is really who" and "who is with who" or part of what movement or ideology to pollute otherwise sensible forms of argument. Unfortunately, it's nearly impossible to say anything neutral on this topic, most of what is said is tied to a technology or to an ideology, see:

==technology-specific views==

*[[Interwiki identity standard]]

==[[faction]]al views==

===[[Trolls]]===

'''Alleged and collective identity''' problems plague the Internet. Even those services that try to require that users [[use real names]] often have problems with impersonation or false name creation. It is very common for users to create [[sock puppet]] accounts to create the impression of many people that agree when in fact there is only one person creating the agreement with his or her own comments. And, [[name-calling]] and [[labelling]] are very common so that even if people's personal names or identities are not at issue, their affiliation or loyalties or ideologies are. So a group of people that just happen to agree might all be labelled "left-wing" or "right-wing" or "commies" or assumed to be conspiring.

Here are some things not to do:

*do not claim that you know the "real name" of any person unless they use it themselves clearly on Consumerium ''- not on some other wiki where the same user name may well be taken by another person - there is no [[interwiki identity standard]]!''
*do not claim that others are deliberately conspiring against you on Consumerium
*do not claim that others are all funded by some group or part of some party if they have not said so themselves
*do not claim that other people are advocating some ideology in particular if they have not said they are

[[Consumerium:Itself]] has a simple solution to all of these problems: if you believe that someone advocates a point of view that is strongly shared with others, encourage them to join an existing [[faction]] so that they may work with those others to create a common shared [[point of view]] that will be comprehensible to others outside that faction. Then, the shared view can be presented in the best possible light, without always compromising with others who differ very strongly in their outlook.

Likewise, if you believe that there are unethical or unreasonable tactics going on, then, you may claim that someone is one of the [[trolls]]. When someone is called a [[troll]] that does not really mean anything other than that someone (yourself, say) finds their behaviour or manner inappropriate or maybe insincere. Since you can't really set any objective rules yourself on their behaviour, and can't tell how sincere they are, you can only point out that they would be better off joining some other [[faction]] than "trolls" so people would give their perspective more consideration. Once someone has been called a troll, they are strongly encouraged to join some explicit faction. If they choose to remain trolls, or choose to call themselves trolls immediately upon arrival, then, they can expect no great consideration or social graces from others. For the vast majority of trolls, this is just what they want - a place to gripe and debate freely without any silly "community" expectations - a sort of intellectual fight club. There is nothing wrong with this view of wiki but others should be warned to expect no consideration. ''Effectively, those who choose to participate as trolls have accepted [[Crocker's Rules]] which are basically that they themselves have chosen to let others hurt their feelings.''

Since [[sock puppet]] and [[obvious troll]] accounts will all belong in the [[faction]] [[trolls]], it is irrelevant "who is writing what" or "who agrees with who" or "how many are agreeing". This is all up to the trolls to agree on: if they never agree on any common answer, they're going to be quite powerless in the OurAnswer system. Eventually anyone smart enough to advance complex arguments will probably want to join some other [[faction]] and behave at least well enough to remain there and not be kicked back into the "plain old trolls" faction again!

While the above might seem strange or unreasonable to some users, please be very assured that all other attempts to solve problems of '''alleged and collective identity''' including advice to '''ignore trolls''' or '''block trolls''' or '''require response to hearsay''' or '''name and shame''' do not work - all have been tried over and over again, and only a sort of culture of mutual trolling as the bottom line, seems to really work in [[large public wiki]]s to get the trolls and those who expect "community" off each other's backs:

It's far better for all users if the most contentious users ally into [[faction]]s deliberately, just as it's better for all citizens if the most contentious politicians ally into political parties, and we only hear from them every few years at election time. Anything else is just too much damn noise!

Vandal

2004-07-13T22:44:52Z

Trolling Consumerium: from OurAnswer:vandals

There are three types of '''vandal'':

*the simple vandal who simply blanks pages or inserts obvious nonsense like "nyah nyah na nyah nyah" or "you are a [[troll]]" (only [[trolls]] can claim to be trolls, so, someone else calling you one is just fatuous compliment)
*the sophisticated vandal who inserts credible-reading nonsense like false facts that seem almost right - if this is nonrandom then they may be a [[POV warrior]] or [[funded troll]] which is not vandalism but a genuine conflict on what sources to trust
*the [[sysop vandal]] who exercises [[technological escalation]] and trust gained through doing routine tasks, to apply their poor editorial judgement, e.g. to [[ad hominem delete]] or [[IP block]] those whose philosophies aren't compatible with infinite tolerance of the [[Sysop Vandal point of view]], i.e. that those who have technological power, are morally superior by definition.

=== Vandals as a [[faction]] ===

The '''Vandals''' are a de facto [[faction]] consisting of all [[IP number]]s consistently used to do [[vandalism]], whose editors seem to have no interest in becoming [[trolls]]. When trolls will not vouch for an edit, by whatever means they use to do that (it must be [[factionally defined]] by them alone), then it must be considered [[vandalism]]. Presumably this includes all insensible page replacement, graffiti-like "tagging", plain jokes, or simple page blanking. [[Lowest Troll]] can remove these from view, as soon as the trolls agree its vandalism.

Note that [[sysop vandalism]] and less visible [[developer vandalism]] is also possible. There is no reason to believe that sysops or developers never make an article less useful, or never engage in behaviour that degardes the corpus.

By incorporating vandals as a faction in themselves, one that is the only one whose edits are invisible, we achieve [[reflexive]] [[wiki management]] where no external "mailing list" or "IRC channel" or "special status" is required.

Interwiki faction standard

2004-07-13T21:49:14Z

Trolling Consumerium: GFDL, from OurAnswer, by 142.177.114.213 - trying a different, more flexible convention.

An '''interwiki faction standard''' is the collective equivalent of an [[interwiki identity standard]]. It would allow for persistent association of identities, individuals and views over multiple [[large public wiki]]s. So far it seems to be advocated only by people who are called "[[trolls]]" on some of these, and who often appear as [[new troll]]s on wikis that don't know of them. Presumably they would wish to retain a reputation of their own choice, that is, a faction, rather than always being assigned one by the cliques on the new wiki where they arrive. It is unclear if this is a good thing, so there is no advocacy of such a standard at present among any non-troll/political faction.

== [[faction]]al advocacy ==

=== [[Trolls]] ===

''This section approved by [[Trolls]].''

As wikis begin to implement factions, it will make it difficult for factions to co-operate cross-wiki. To ease this co-operation, the [[interwiki faction standard]] is proposed.

It would built on and complement the proposed [[interwiki identity standard]] for self-declared individual identity. It is likely that individuals would belong to different factions on different [[large public wiki]]s, they having different purposes and different critical distinctions. However, the mechanisms and [[control verb]]s by which one is asserted to be in a faction, accepts or denies that assertion, joins other factions, or is relegated to the default [[vandals]] faction that one ends up in if no faction (not even the [[trolls]]) will accredit one's edit as being of any use.

Once implemented, the OurAnswer:reds could make a decision to be the same as the Recyclopedia:reds, etc., to set default faction membership as faction members or [[new troll]]s (those who are asserted to have, but do not themselves claim to have, a particular bias) arrive. This would be up to the factions not the [[sysop power structure]] on each such wiki, resulting in less [[sysopism]] hopefully.

Ontological distinction(24)

2004-07-03T23:43:02Z

Trolling Consumerium: GFDL, from meta.wikipedia by English Wikipedia User 24

An '''ontological distinction''' separates multiple processes or states from a single being. Many such distinctions are combined into a [[schema]] or any broader [[ontology]]. There are also ordinary distinctions that affect neither a [[foundation ontology]] or any very large number of exercises in categorization - what makes a distinction 'ontological' is its claim to truth, to itself being sufficient to permit an ignorance or a confusion of category. An [[operational distinction]] is that required to guide action, which may or may not be related one to one to a given ontological distinction.

In programming or systems design, an ontological distinction is usually found in the constraints or domain analysis phase, while operational distinctions are left to last during programming itself (a series of yes/no switching and branching decisions, ultimately, when the program is compiled to object code). The "design phase" usually consists of ordinary distinctions, e.g. pseudo-code, mixed metaphors, weak analogies, that are not clearly or purely either ontological or operational in character, and do not bind directly to either the user's cognition nor the processor's machine code instruction set.

One well known ontological distinction is that of [[Rene Descartes]], "cogito ergo sum", a statement of [[mind-body dualism]]. This had a very substantial influence on the 19th and 20th century scientific [[foundation ontology]] based first on "F=MA" and the [[periodic table]], and later on "E=MC^2" and [[particle physics]]. In both cases, it was never questioned that Descartes' dualism applied - more recently the ontological distinctions involving the observing body, it's cognition, it's priorities and ethics of investigation, were seen to provide a serious challenge via the [[philosophy of action]].

Another key ontological distinction was [[Alfred Korzybski]]'s "law of non-identity, also called the law of individuality, which states that no two persons, or situations, or stages of processes are the same in all details. Korzybski noted that we have fewer words and ideas than experiences, and this tends to lead to the identification ("confusion") of two or more situations."

The existence or non-existence of God is another key ontological distinction, and perhaps the one that has generated the most debate in the Western world - from [[Anselm]] to [[Kurt Godel]] there have been several "[[ontological proofs of God]]", each relying on several other ontological distinctions that are amenable to challenge. However, anyone inspecting these proofs who is in accord with the ontological distinctions they make or fail to make, willing to confuse or ignore certain concepts in line with those distinctions, should according to those authors be willing to accept an ontological proof of God.

This demonstrates a key feature of an ontological as opposed to operational distinction - an ontological distinction is abstract and guides cognition and perception, it cannot guide action directly. Any operational distinction that is applied in practice, e.g. put hand on hot stove or not, carries with it an opportunity to learn or retract the distinction based on experience, i.e. to pull it back quickly and learn not to do it again. Although the act will not entirely be undone, it is not necessary to decide once that stoves in all states are safe to lay hands on, and then believe in that forevermore. While, an ontological distinction is generally harder to learn from or retract, since it affects the basic category confusion or ignorance of cognitive complexity itself - once one has decided to label two things as "the same", e.g. "two apples", or to ignore something, e.g. "rule of law", it becomes relatively difficult to distinguish subcategories or become aware of subtle and new distinctions below the level of one's ontological beliefs.

This phenomenon is often called "constructive ignorance" or "useful confusion" or (in [[object-oriented programming]]) "polymorphism" - a "higher" level process becomes wilfully ignorant of subtle differences between items or situations or actions "below", and confuses them freely. In psychology, it is observed to be related to [[cognitive distinction]] in the processes of language learning and inability to learn new sounds later in life. In social sciences it is studied in group dynamics as "[[groupthink]]".

See: [[groupthink]], [[ignorance]], [[foundation ontology]], [[polymorphism in object-oriented programming]], [[operational distinction]], [[m:Governing Ontological distinction]]s of the wikipedia itself

Talk:Wikipedia (from 142 perspective)

2004-07-02T10:06:42Z

Trolling Consumerium: link troll mafia: we need a good article on these passive-aggressive tactics, and their relation to "soft security"

The entire [[m:]] Meta-Wikipedia is devoted to Talk about Wikipedia. Please don't do it here!

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

Only issue worth noting is who we don't want coming over here. It's now getting quite easy to identify who the ideologically motivated censors are:

[http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2004-March/011420.html This account] correctly quotes the [[sysop vandalism|sysop-vandal]] [[w:User:Pakaran]] and the [[w:racism|overt racist]] [[w:User:RickK]] as conspiring to attack and remove views from a contrary POV, that of [[Reds]].

According to that account, "The comments by User:Pakaran
are merely an example of a broader, overarching pattern; the abuse of users
who hold unpopular beliefs is practically out in the open now and out of
control." [[w:User:Jimbo_Wales]] calls this [[sysop vigilantiism]], though he himself admits an [http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2004-March/011439.html anti-communist viewpoint] probably due to being American and brainwashed by racists and fascists in primary school.

Sokolov's list of racists and fascists engaged in this behaviour include[http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2004-March/011443.html "Pakaran, RickK, Adam Carr, PMA, Very Verily, Tim Starling, and Robert Merkel"]. Of these [[w:User:Adam_Carr]] seems most egregious to Sokolov/172. Interesting how this list compares to those listed in the various [[AWR]]. It could not be a coincidence that on a list of ONLY SEVEN USERS, that THREE OF THEM would be also those engaged in ideological censorship earlier, against 142 and others - see [[142.X.X.X/Tim_Starling]] for instance, where Starling basically admits his whole motivation for adding range blocks to [[mediawiki]] is ideological.

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

There's an interesting discussion on the [http://www.webbyawards.com/peoplesvoice/index.html Webby - People's Voice] message boards about Wikipedia's nominations (under the "Community" and "Best practices" categories). It is partly referenced in a [[w:Wikipedia:Village pump]] thread (subject: Integrity of Wikipedia as an Encyclopedia).

If you want to view or contribute comments on the Webby Awards website, go there, log in and look under "community" and "best practices" for comments.

''From [[w:Wikipedia_talk:Webby Awards]]''

:"The day will come when I will put out the call for funds to distribute paper copies of Wikipedia to every child in every third world country in the world. This, too, is our mission...to achieve those goals will require us to become famous, to become a household name to every single person on the planet. Why? Because to distribute our work to everyone in the world is going to cost an enormous ton of money,...We're taking part in a revolution here, not playing around with a sideline hobby...I fully intend to get a copy of Wikipedia to every single person on the planet, and I'll do what it takes to get there" - Wales.

:This would be profitable for the paper and printing industry. What do you suggest then, printing and distributing [[Wikinfo]]? --[[User:Juxo|Juxo]] 17:15, 27 Apr 2004 (EEST)

::Wales must be stopped, now, before he and his clique really do rule the encyclopedia world. He used to be just an incompetent hobbyist. Now he wants to be the Bill Gates of content.

::This would be extremely dangerous for the planet itself, given [[w:GDP]] and other far right wing entries, the unbalanced "community" that "protects" these to remain acceptable to far-right Americans. There's also deliberate censorship of even mildly green entries.

::The right answer is for an [[independent board]], say from [http://longnow.org longnow] or some bunch of [[NGO]]s, to take over and figure out what an ideal [[developing nation]] village actually cares about, and then make sure at least that is there in [[Simple English]]. Sabotaging this kind of thing is what makes good projects into [[enemy projects]]. The [[GFDL Corpus]] must be taken over by some more responsible group that cares about its users, not its own "community"/cliques.

:::Feel free to do so, it's [[GFDL]] stupid

''also from that page''

Integrity of Wikipedia as an Encyclopedia

While I was voting for Wikipedia under the category of community, I ran accross a comment that suggested Wikipedia is not a community and that the encyclopedia was losing its integrity as a pedia because members were making some sort social hierarchy which resulted in the deletion and reverting of articles on the basis of who wrote it instead of the accuracy of the article. Should these accusations be true, then the goal of Wikipedia as an encyclopedia has be compromised. What I want to know is, are these supposed deletions and revertions on the basis of the writer of an article indeed occuring?

:This is true, it's [[ad hominem delete]] and [[sysop vandalism]], which are absolutely counter to any "real encyclopedia" goals.

------

There's an instructive discussion re: Wikipedia and Bomis at [[w:Talk:Fallujah]]. Several users are demanding some sort of disclaimer that Bomis is somehow associated with the U.S. Marine Corps and therefore Wikipedia/Wikimedia cannot be neutral in editing such articles as Fallujah. Jimmy Wales has replied [http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2004-April/012277.html here]

-----------

"Trolls and vandals [aren't] the problem -- its the control freaks who are the real problem." - Adam Rinkleff [http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2004-April/012098.html]

:Absolutely correct. In fact the [[trolls]] are the freedom fighters, and the [[vandals]] now seem to be serving a necessary purpose by keeping many sysops who are control freaks distracted, and hopefully burning them out eventually.

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

Also, [http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2004-April/012077.html some on the mailing list] are actually advocating participating in [[googlebombing]] for partisan causes.

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

[[English Wikipedia User Plautus satire]] [http://www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.phtml?title=User_talk:JustNews comments] on Wikipedia:

:"I can speak from personal experience with Wales and wikipedia, they are not nearly as interested in accuracy as they are in getting a polished product to package and sell to the highest (Disney) bidder. Blocking of users is frequent and capricious. The admins there run in packs, any time one of them finds something they want drowned off the pages, they alert the other admins who all stand in line to revert it one after another until they goad people into getting nasty with them. Classic [[troll mafia]] techniques, that project is shit as far as I'm concerned."

::The correct move is to discredit [[Wikimedia]] with the governments and corporate bidders that have expressed interest or support, and to create other [[GFDL corpus access provider]]s that are free of this [[Wikimedia corruption]].

Interesting projects

2004-07-01T16:55:05Z

Trolling Consumerium: http://planetarycitizen.open.ac.uk/

==Not-for-profit Projects==

If you are not sure if a new link belongs here, please check '''[[Links|Other Links]]''' for other alternatives.

See first the [[essential projects]] that are doing what we are doing, and that we have little choice but to work with and improve.

==possible sources of [[Research Wiki]] input ==

===[[GFDL corpus]]===

*[[CorpKnowPedia]] - (Running [[MediaWiki]], under [[GFDL]])

*[[Recyclopedia]] is creating a free and open content encyclopedia of social change, social justice and environmental justice information.

* [[OurAnswer]] is a method for the people to respond to [[business leaders]] and [[politicians]]. -(Running [[MediaWiki]], under [[GFDL]])

* [[Disinfopedia]] is a collaborative project to produce a directory of public relations firms, think tanks, industry-funded organizations and industry-friendly experts that work to influence public opinion and public policy on behalf of corporations, governments and special interests. And yes, it's in the [[GFDL]] part of the world (Running [[MediaWiki]], under [[GFDL]])

*[[Wikipedia]] - The free encyclopedia, all content is under [[GFDL]]. - (Running [[MediaWiki]])

*[[w:Wiktionary|Wiktionary]] - A spin off from wikipedia. The free dictionary and thesaurus in every language if it gets done someday. [[GFDL]] also. Not much happening there now. - (Running [[MediaWiki]], under [[GFDL]])

*http://wikibooks.org - Yet another great idea being put forward by WikiMedia Foundation. Wikibooks is dedicated to developing and disseminating free, open content textbooks and other classroom texts - (Running [[MediaWiki]], under [[GFDL]])

* [[Cookbook]] - One of the wikibooks that is of particular interest is the cookbook. Includes information on [[vegan]] and [[vegetarian]] food as well as other moral purchasing. - (Running [[MediaWiki]], under [[GFDL]])

*http://veganwiki.org/ - for our vegan friends, currently only in German, but English, French and Spanish wikis are being prepared for setup

=== not [[GFDL]] ===

* http://www.theyrule.net/ - Topic map style visual presentations of interrelations of [[Companies]] [[Executives]] and stuff in the US mostly. Static mapping so they have an advisory about probably being out-of-date.

* [http://now.ohah.net/en/Earth_Reforesting_System "Earth Reforesting System"] - not sure if this is going to work, but, at least they started with mediawiki, so maybe they are just waiting for others to chip in, just like Consumerium did. Mostly in Japanese.

* http://www.environmentaldirectory.net/ - lists over 13.000 organisations dealing with environmental issues in the US

* [http://www.thetransitioner.org TheTransitioner.org] - an attempt to build "a Collective Intelligence economy" and [http://www.thetransitioner.org/wiki/tiki-index.php?page=Open+Source+Money Open Source Money]. They seem to [[User:N8chz|one observer]] fixated on currency issues. - [[Alternative wiki-implementations|TikiWiki]], Copyright unknown
----
==Misc.==

* http://www.aflcio.org/corporateamerica/paywatch/ - Annoy yourself by looking up how much US CEOs' get compensated

* http://www.ipjustice.org A project that lobbies against [[Digital Rights Management]] and misuse of Intellectual Property.

* http://globalgreens.org - mailing lists automatically set up for any Green Party - or other groups obeying [http://globalgreens.info Global Greens Charter]

* http://crit.org - annotation software to 'mark up' any site on the web

* http://smartmobs.com - discussion of mobile technologies for politics

* http://slipperycat.com - attempt to nail down ontology for game business - shows what a simple industry looks like from low level code up to production. - a '''stub''' at the moment

*http://www.2action.com/main.asp - a commercial vendor of [[worn device]] software for meeting and sales support - what does their UI look like? What words mean what? We should always study carefully this kind of example of a decision support system

* http://planetarycitizen.open.ac.uk/ - A network for the Planetary Citizen
: "This project comes out of a vision for a peaceful, sustainable future for the Earth that has been developing in many places. That vision was very evident in the non-governmental side of the World Summit for Sustainable Development (WSSD) in Johannesburg in August/September 2002, in many of the events that were ignored by the mass media."

----
'''See also:'''
* [[Interesting organisations]] - Institutions and organisations that provide [[reference]] or possibly [[content]]
* [[Interesting companies]] - Commercial links
* [[Strange projects]] for amusing, off topic sites

New Troll point of view

2004-06-30T22:10:42Z

Trolling Consumerium: de-CamelCase

The '''New [[Troll]] [[point of view]]''' is that the [[neutral point of view]] isn't, and has [[systemic bias]], that can only be fixed by piling in [[legions of trolls]] of the opposite view. It is a warlike view of what knowledge is - which is appropriate, as [[knowledge is power]] and that only leads to warfare.

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]], implies morality.

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 there is thus no advantage whatsoever to those who suck up to power. This is the most [[troll-friendly]] of the [[wiki best practices]].

----

== 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|there]] 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. However, what constitutes "undefended" is usually entirely up to the observer (see spun threat for a way in which this can be made obvious to third party observers)." (from [[Trolling|here]])

However, the entire [http://consumerium.org Consumerium project] is [[Troll|seen]] as one big "troll" against powerful corporations, governments, etc: "...culture of trolling (of which Consumerium is necessarily a part, since it always will be perceived as "trolling perfect corporations with bad untrue things" until of course the corporation must admit that all the "trolling" is true..."

==== 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 (see, for example, the way that they treat "sysops" such as Jimbo Wales of Wikipedia). 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 al disruption be tolerated (since no one is in a position to say which disruption is good and which is bad).

=== 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..." (from [[New Troll point of view|here]])

=== 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]]
* [[New Troll point of view]]
* [[Repute]]
* [[Driven off by trolls]]
* [[Friendly troll]]
* [[Trolling]]
* [[Sysop power structure]]
* [[Sysopism]]

New Troll point of view

2004-06-30T22:07:13Z

Trolling Consumerium:

The '''New [[Troll]] [[point of view]]''' is that the [[neutral point of view]] isn't, and has [[systemic bias]], that can only be fixed by piling in [[legions of trolls]] of the opposite view. It is a warlike view of what knowledge is - which is appropriate, as [[knowledge is power]] and that only leads to warfare.

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]], implies morality.

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 there is thus no advantage whatsoever to those who suck up to power. This is the most [[troll-friendly]] of the [[wiki best practices]].

----

== 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|there]] 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. However, what constitutes "undefended" is usually entirely up to the observer (see spun threat for a way in which this can be made obvious to third party observers)." (from [[Trolling|here]])

However, the entire [http://consumerium.org Consumerium project] is [[Troll|seen]] as one big "troll" against powerful corporations, governments, etc: "...culture of trolling (of which Consumerium is necessarily a part, since it always will be perceived as "trolling perfect corporations with bad untrue things" until of course the corporation must admit that all the "trolling" is true..."

==== 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 (see, for example, the way that they treat "sysops" such as Jimbo Wales of Wikipedia). 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 al disruption be tolerated (since no one is in a position to say which disruption is good and which is bad).

=== 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..." (from [[New Troll point of view|here]])

=== 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]]
* [[New Troll point of view]]
* [[Repute]]
* [[Driven off by trolls]]
* [[Friendly troll]]
* [[Trolling]]
* [[Sysop power structure]]
* [[Sysopism]]

New Troll point of view

2004-06-30T22:05:53Z

Trolling Consumerium: format, no substantial change in content.

The '''New [[Troll]] [[point of view]]''' is that the [[neutral point of view]] isn't, and has [[systemic bias]], that can only be fixed by piling in [[legions of trolls]] of the opposite view. It is a warlike view of what knowledge is - which is appropriate, as [[knowledge is power]] and that only leads to warfare.

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]], implies morality.

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 there is thus no advantage whatsoever to those who suck up to power. This is the most [[troll-friendly]] of the [[wiki best practices]].

----

== 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|there]] 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. However, what constitutes "undefended" is usually entirely up to the observer (see spun threat for a way in which this can be made obvious to third party observers)." (from [[Trolling|here]])

However, the entire [http://consumerium.org Consumerium project] is [[Troll|seen]] as one big "troll" against powerful corporations, governments, etc: "...culture of trolling (of which Consumerium is necessarily a part, since it always will be perceived as "trolling perfect corporations with bad untrue things" until of course the corporation must admit that all the "trolling" is true..."

==== 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 (see, for example, the way that they treat "sysops" such as Jimbo Wales of Wikipedia). 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 al disruption be tolerated (since no one is in a position to say which disruption is good and which is bad).

=== 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..." (from [[New Troll point of view|here]])

=== 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]]
* [[New Troll point of view]]
* [[Repute]]
* [[Driven off by trolls]]
* [[Friendly troll]]
* [[Trolling]]
* [[Sysop power structure]]
* [[Sysopism]]

Talk:Wikipedia (from 142 perspective)

2004-06-29T17:12:10Z

Trolling Consumerium:

The entire [[m:]] Meta-Wikipedia is devoted to Talk about Wikipedia. Please don't do it here!

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

Only issue worth noting is who we don't want coming over here. It's now getting quite easy to identify who the ideologically motivated censors are:

[http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2004-March/011420.html This account] correctly quotes the [[sysop vandalism|sysop-vandal]] [[w:User:Pakaran]] and the [[w:racism|overt racist]] [[w:User:RickK]] as conspiring to attack and remove views from a contrary POV, that of [[Reds]].

According to that account, "The comments by User:Pakaran
are merely an example of a broader, overarching pattern; the abuse of users
who hold unpopular beliefs is practically out in the open now and out of
control." [[w:User:Jimbo_Wales]] calls this [[sysop vigilantiism]], though he himself admits an [http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2004-March/011439.html anti-communist viewpoint] probably due to being American and brainwashed by racists and fascists in primary school.

Sokolov's list of racists and fascists engaged in this behaviour include[http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2004-March/011443.html "Pakaran, RickK, Adam Carr, PMA, Very Verily, Tim Starling, and Robert Merkel"]. Of these [[w:User:Adam_Carr]] seems most egregious to Sokolov/172. Interesting how this list compares to those listed in the various [[AWR]]. It could not be a coincidence that on a list of ONLY SEVEN USERS, that THREE OF THEM would be also those engaged in ideological censorship earlier, against 142 and others - see [[142.X.X.X/Tim_Starling]] for instance, where Starling basically admits his whole motivation for adding range blocks to [[mediawiki]] is ideological.

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

There's an interesting discussion on the [http://www.webbyawards.com/peoplesvoice/index.html Webby - People's Voice] message boards about Wikipedia's nominations (under the "Community" and "Best practices" categories). It is partly referenced in a [[w:Wikipedia:Village pump]] thread (subject: Integrity of Wikipedia as an Encyclopedia).

If you want to view or contribute comments on the Webby Awards website, go there, log in and look under "community" and "best practices" for comments.

''From [[w:Wikipedia_talk:Webby Awards]]''

:"The day will come when I will put out the call for funds to distribute paper copies of Wikipedia to every child in every third world country in the world. This, too, is our mission...to achieve those goals will require us to become famous, to become a household name to every single person on the planet. Why? Because to distribute our work to everyone in the world is going to cost an enormous ton of money,...We're taking part in a revolution here, not playing around with a sideline hobby...I fully intend to get a copy of Wikipedia to every single person on the planet, and I'll do what it takes to get there" - Wales.

:This would be profitable for the paper and printing industry. What do you suggest then, printing and distributing [[Wikinfo]]? --[[User:Juxo|Juxo]] 17:15, 27 Apr 2004 (EEST)

::Wales must be stopped, now, before he and his clique really do rule the encyclopedia world. He used to be just an incompetent hobbyist. Now he wants to be the Bill Gates of content.

::This would be extremely dangerous for the planet itself, given [[w:GDP]] and other far right wing entries, the unbalanced "community" that "protects" these to remain acceptable to far-right Americans. There's also deliberate censorship of even mildly green entries.

::The right answer is for an [[independent board]], say from [http://longnow.org longnow] or some bunch of [[NGO]]s, to take over and figure out what an ideal [[developing nation]] village actually cares about, and then make sure at least that is there in [[Simple English]]. Sabotaging this kind of thing is what makes good projects into [[enemy projects]]. The [[GFDL Corpus]] must be taken over by some more responsible group that cares about its users, not its own "community"/cliques.

:::Feel free to do so, it's [[GFDL]] stupid

''also from that page''

Integrity of Wikipedia as an Encyclopedia

While I was voting for Wikipedia under the category of community, I ran accross a comment that suggested Wikipedia is not a community and that the encyclopedia was losing its integrity as a pedia because members were making some sort social hierarchy which resulted in the deletion and reverting of articles on the basis of who wrote it instead of the accuracy of the article. Should these accusations be true, then the goal of Wikipedia as an encyclopedia has be compromised. What I want to know is, are these supposed deletions and revertions on the basis of the writer of an article indeed occuring?

:This is true, it's [[ad hominem delete]] and [[sysop vandalism]], which are absolutely counter to any "real encyclopedia" goals.

------

There's an instructive discussion re: Wikipedia and Bomis at [[w:Talk:Fallujah]]. Several users are demanding some sort of disclaimer that Bomis is somehow associated with the U.S. Marine Corps and therefore Wikipedia/Wikimedia cannot be neutral in editing such articles as Fallujah. Jimmy Wales has replied [http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2004-April/012277.html here]

-----------

"Trolls and vandals [aren't] the problem -- its the control freaks who are the real problem." - Adam Rinkleff [http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2004-April/012098.html]

:Absolutely correct. In fact the [[trolls]] are the freedom fighters, and the [[vandals]] now seem to be serving a necessary purpose by keeping many sysops who are control freaks distracted, and hopefully burning them out eventually.

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

Also, [http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2004-April/012077.html some on the mailing list] are actually advocating participating in [[googlebombing]] for partisan causes.

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

[[English Wikipedia User Plautus satire]] [http://www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.phtml?title=User_talk:JustNews comments] on Wikipedia:

:"I can speak from personal experience with Wales and wikipedia, they are not nearly as interested in accuracy as they are in getting a polished product to package and sell to the highest (Disney) bidder. Blocking of users is frequent and capricious. The admins there run in packs, any time one of them finds something they want drowned off the pages, they alert the other admins who all stand in line to revert it one after another until they goad people into getting nasty with them. Classic troll mafia techniques, that project is shit as far as I'm concerned."

Talk:Interesting software

2004-06-28T14:42:38Z

Trolling Consumerium:

What's the potential of [[twisted]] for this project? Is it going to support the [[mobile device]] [[Python]]s? Or [[MoinMoin]]?

----

[http://onebigsoup.wiki.taoriver.net/ OneBigSoup] "is working on integrating existing communication systems, including Wiki, IRC, Instant Messaging, e-mail, and even static web sites."

Talk:New Troll point of view

2004-06-26T16:56:16Z

Trolling Consumerium: w:User:Timwi on the vile mailing list

Talk:New Troll point of view

2004-06-26T16:54:56Z

Trolling Consumerium:

Sysop Vandal point of view

2004-06-26T12:43:27Z

Trolling Consumerium: clarify

The '''Sysop Vandal point of view''' or '''Cabal point of view''' (usually abbreviated SVpov because [[CPOV]] is used to mean [[Critical point of view]]) is the view of the [[sysop power structure]] and (if applicable) [[GodKing]].

By definition, any group of people approves of their own [[systemic bias]] and rejects strong opposition to it. This forms a [[cabal]] which new [[trolls]], perhaps foolishly, oppose in the assumption that the cabal can be forced to see sanity, by anything short of political opposition. The [[New Troll point of view]] is thus always and exactly the opposite of the SVpov, and indicates ethical attempts by [[trolls]] to defeat the SVpov by rational argument, before the service is subject to real-world opposition (e.g. widespread criticism, legal action, etc.) due to its political importance.

Thus [[troll]] activity acts as an important warning to the [[sysop vandalism]] advocates - when it slacks off, that indicates either that the wiki has become politically irrelevant, or, that opposition will continue by other means, e.g. [[lawsuit]]s, or the more standard revolutionary methods for [[wiki regime change]].

Sysop Vandal point of view

2004-06-26T12:42:07Z

Trolling Consumerium: replaced ref. to violence with

The '''Sysop Vandal point of view''' or '''Cabal point of view''' (usually abbreviated SVpov because [[CPOV]] is used to mean [[Critical point of view]]) is the view of the [[sysop power structure]] and (if applicable) [[GodKing]].

By definition, any group of people approves of their own [[systemic bias]] and rejects strong opposition to it. This forms a [[cabal]] which new [[trolls]], perhaps foolishly, oppose in the assumption that the cabal can be forced to see sanity, by anything short of political opposition. The [[New Troll point of view]] is thus always and exactly the opposite of the SVpov, and indicates ethical attempts by [[trolls]] to defeat the SVpov by rational argument, before the service is subject to real-world opposition (e.g. widespread criticism, legal action, etc.) due to its political importance.

Thus [[troll]] activity acts as an important warning to the [[sysop vandalism]] advocates - when it slacks off, that indicates either that the wiki has become irrelevant, or, that opposition will continue by other means, e.g. [[lawsuit]]s, or the more standard revolutionary methods for [[wiki regime change]].

Wikipedia (from 142 perspective)

2004-06-25T20:45:44Z

Trolling Consumerium: more troll-friendly

'''[[WARNING]] This article is linked from [[142.177.X.X/Anti Wikipedia Rants]] and expresses a critical perspective. If [[neutral point of view]] is your religion or the cabal are your friends you will not like this! [[WARNING]]'''

''See also [[Wikipedia (neutral)]] for a neutral point of view version.''

==Wikipedia Itself==

'''Wikipedia''' is a [[large public wiki]] run by the [[Wikimedia]] foundation, It also receives support from Bomis Inc. in the form of free [[w:bandwidth|bandwidth]] and this connection with a [[for-profit]] [[corporation]] is seen as a burden affecting the functioning of [[Wikipedia]] as ''' a free encyclopedia''' as it claims to be.

''Because Wikipedia censors much discussion of its own deficiencies, especially its legally significant ones, this article will focus on these, to balance the view at [[w:Wikipedia]] and [[w:Meta-Wikipedia]], which contains largely a Wikipedia-promoting view.''

Wikipedia claims to be an [[w:encyclopedia|encyclopedia]] based on the [[GFDL text corpus]]. That is, it claims to have the editorial standards of an encyclopedia. It further asserts by claiming it is applying the terms of the GFDL that anything written and released under [[GFDL]], including those directly submitted via [[the Wikipedia user interface]] which is based on [[mediawiki]], can be legally included in the Wikipedia corpus.

http://wikipedia.org is the largest GFDL access point. As is often pointed out, it is in technical violation of several points of the GFDL due to a combination of software deficiencies, mismatches of the software with the terms of the GFDL, and a developer and [[sysop power structure]] that is the opposite of democratic, and strongly favours insiders over outsiders. It is generally run better in the 22 languages other than English, since the guiltiest parties actually can't read those languages. The [[GodKing]], Jim Wales, can't read or write any language other than English. This is probably good:

Wikipedias' struggle to resolves their internal contradictions (multi-language project run by a [[GodKing]] who speaks and reads only English, claims of neutrality with no outreach or mediation mechanism other than a technology that itself puts a [[sysop power structure]] of mostly developed-world people in charge of content, inability to examine its own [[community point of view]]) will provide both good and bad examples for the [[Consumerium Governance Organization]], which would do well to avoid all the pitfalls it is falling into. ''See [[142.X.X.X/Tim_Starling]] for a starting list of these, and references to longstanding issues and potential solutions that 'Wikipedians' ignore and censor, mostly at [[Meta-Wikipedia]], e.g. [[m:regime change]].''

For instance the [http://fr.wikipedia.org French Wikipedia] is among the best run, although it had teething pains, it attracted competent people who knew to selectively ignore Wales' pronouncements. Probably the worst run today is the [http://simple.wikipedia.org Simple English Wikipedia] - which seems to have no framework even for deciding what "Simple" is to mean... what purposes (or even audiences) it is to serve and what level of English mastery they may have. It has actually discouraged any discussion or policy setting in these regards, the opposite of what a real basis for translation of articles would have done.

===Criticisms:===

Wikipedia is often used as a [[bad example]] in discussions about the [[wiki way]] - sometimes rightly, sometimes wrongly. Wrong use of it as an example focuses on the fact that it has a specific mission to build some specific content - which in fact almost all wikis do. Wikis are not wholly for the benefit of their authors, but, presumably, create some statement that WE* agree on and can present to others as OUR opinion or best assembly of the facts. The highly confused and ideological [[Meatball Wiki]] has a page[http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?WikiPediaIsNotTypical "Wikipedia is not typical"] which focuses on this, as if somehow wikis in general existed solely to facilitate text interchange among their users. Which might be true if wikis were all dating services, or intended to serve purposes like those of [[NetNews]]. However, this is to miss the whole point of [[collaborative editing technology]], which is to produce some output that represents something that is "more true than not". In real wikis, goodwill among contributors is a side effect of dedication to a common goal. In bad ones, it is required even under extreme circumstances of unethical behaviour, e.g. [[echo chamber]]s.

Correctly citing Wikipedia as a bad example, many insiders are decrying its uniquely destructive and abusive culture. The Cunctator refers to its "vile mailing list", R. K. called it the "Nazipedia" because he believes there is viciously anti-semitic bias (though he continues to contribute), and there are many debates about [[outing]] that seem to focus on whether a [[GodKing]] or [[sysop power structure]] pronouncement regarding the truth can or must be accepted as truth within the [[w:Wikipedia:Itself]].

In discussions of both policy and content, the loudest voices who attract the most supporters during the pendency of a discussion often dominate direction. Users critical of the project are sometimes blocked from discussions. A review of user-histories at Wikipedia suggests that power users who spend several hours a day making small edits to numerous pages often dominate discussions, and comprise the most active elements of the administrative ranks. and that people who are qualified or interested in administrative functions may hold different interests from the people who are the best contributors (see ''[[community point of view]]'' and ''[[systemic bias]]'').

Wikipedia also has serious failings as an encyclopedia. There is no special process or mechanism to deal with a [[political dispute]], with [[faction]]s that can't or won't reconcile their terms to each other, and it explicitly has refused to work out any separate policy for [[terminology dispute]] or for an [[identity dispute]], despite these being quite clearly all different things with different paths to resolution - or not. There are no designated editors to make final decisions, in any language, instead this is a power struggle of sorts, with a [[GodKing]] who speaks only English and can't possibly read all the disputed articles or judge their content. He works on "reputation" alone ultimately, which means the [[power structure]] is strictly hierarchical etc..

Finally, Wikipedia has no full text search facility, due to deficiencies of the [[mediawiki]] software.
:You can do full text searches using '''Google''' or '''Yahoo'''. Full text searching from the [[MySQL]] database became possible starting from version 4.0, which is now in use at [[Wikipedia]], but the lack of this feature is surely related to the heavy load on the servers - the [[Wikimedia]] foundation not having sufficient trust or resources to actually buy sufficient hardware.

===Usefulness:===

Wikipedia articles, flawed as they are, can often be a good first reference for someone with no knowledge at all of a topic, especially if they have good references. After reading a Wikipedia article, it is usually possible to enter a few search terms in google or another search engine and find more credible material on the same subject, confident that you are using the terms that are recognized there. Indeed, it is the ability to find several dozen to a hundred or so hits on google that is often used as a criteria for an acceptable title of an article. This one good feature is abused by applying it to subtitles, however, and generally by applying it only to subjects politically disliked by the sysops.

Wikipedia's article on itself [[w:Wikipedia]] makes various claims about its origins which are generally credible, but doesn't say enough about its many problems. There is an entire separate site devoted to that, the "meta" (see [[m:]]), and this debates issues of [[m:governance]], but the difference between such proposals and real [[m:Wikipedia Governance]] are great indeed.

It seems Wikipedia has gone at least two years without seriously considering its governance structure, and that [[Wikimedia]] is simply a front organization for the same [[power structure]] that was described in early 2002 by Wales - a simple hierarchy with himself in charge, no accountability to anyone, not even donors who believe they are supporting a GFDL encyclopedia with "open" editing.

There has been some examination of the project's role and the way it portrays itself, see [[w:Wikipedia:Itself]] for a list of contributions relevant to the form of Wikipedia, itself.

In general, Wikipedia has a dishonest view of itself, and presents itself very dishonestly as an attempt to build an encyclopedia, when in fact it appears to do little or nothing to meet the editorial standards of a serious encyclopedia, and forces people of strong qualifications to answer to petty abuse from various parties of no particular qualifications at all, as the project turned to popular selection of contributors and casual verification of content, often on ad hominem reasoning toward authors, instead of a more formal fact-checking process. It should be seen as a project that helped build the [[GFDL text corpus]] in many languages, but is now in decline. Much as the attempt to build a "GNU Unix" built the body of [[GPL]] code.

Wikipedia, more so than other wiki service in early 2004, had become a main source for re-distribution of encyclopedic content by other sites, and thus expanded the reach of errors contained in its largely unverified content. Redistribution of Wikipedia-sourced material by another user-editable encyclopedia that could prove more popular with contributors might pose the greatest risk to control by Wikipedia's founding cadre.

===Relation to Consumerium===

The default position should be that Wikipedia's serious governance problems are so dangerous to Consumerium that they can't be repeated here. The English Wikipedias and Mediawiki are [[enemy projects]] in that their goals and values differ so radically from those of [[Consumerium]] that any confusion of one set of policies or concept of responsibility on those projects with the policies or responsibilities of Consumerium is a net negative - that is, anyone who says regarding an important governance decision that "X isn't what WE* do on Wikipedia" should be told "right, go away, we're doing it anyway". Or more neutrally, "that's evidence that X is the right thing to do". On [[governance]] specifically.

*"[[who's we]]" on Wikipedia? See [[community point of view]]

----
===List of related wikipedia articles===

If you see something in wikipedia that could be useful, please put it here, if the Wikipedia article '''is not complete''' you should put it in the [[Research]] page - '''Lists and timelines are very welcome.'''

See also [[list of related Disinfopedia articles]], [[list of related Metaweb articles]], [[list of related Internet Encyclopedia articles]], [[list of related Everything2 articles]], [[list of Consumerium related articles]] (all external links)

Understanding buying choices and their effects:
* [[w:Conversion of units]]
* [[w:GTIN]]
* [[w:EAN]]
* [[w:UPC]]
* [[w:List of countries]]
* [[w:List of timelines]]
* [[w:List of reference tables]]
* [[w:List of stock exchanges]]
* [[w:List of supermarkets]]
* [[w:Commodity markets]] - buying on the largest scale
* [[w:Money]] - what it is and how it works, commodifying everything even you
* [[w:Tariff]]

Understanding moral choices as expressed in the marketplace:
* [[w:list of ethics articles]] - why would you care what you buy?
* [[w:Globalization]] makes it harder to know what your money does
* [[w:Transparency International]] tries to make it easier to find out
* [[w:Greenpeace]] has six campaigns to affect buying choices, and advocates
* [[w:Accounting reform]] which would make more liabilities visible to you
* [[w:Full cost accounting]] in particular would make waste visible
* [[w:Means of persuasion]], e.g. [[w:advertising]], [[w:propaganda]] of
** [[w:Productivism]] assumes that everything humans make is good
** [[w:Consumerism]] assumes that everything humans want is good

Directly relevant to consumerium mission, making actual moral buying choices:
* [[w:Slow Food]] - tied for third most relevant? buy local, organic, etc.
* [[w: Sweatshop]] - tied for third most relevant? often the target of
* [[w: Boycott]] - second most relevant? usually shorter term than
* [[w:Moral purchasing]] describes most exactly the consumerium.org mission
* [[w:Local food]]

Other
* [[w:brand management|brand management]], how products are positioned and gain identity. The "Wikipedia" brand has this concern too, leading to:
* tracking of [[w:Wikipedia:Self-references|Self-references]] of the project to itself, which [[self-references|Consumerium needs too]] so it knows what it is and is becoming.
* [[w:Wikipedia:itself]] which is the view of the english version of [[Wikipedia]] from '''Wikipedia, itself,''' and is used to mediate disputes about its direction and purposes.

Talk:GetWiki

2004-06-24T10:50:59Z

Trolling Consumerium:

But is there automatic XML-import and hopefully diff facilities for importing from [[Wikinfo|internet-encyclopedia]] or [[wikipedia]] or any number and choice of [[GetWiki]] or [[MediaWiki]] running [[wikis]]?

:This is a good reason to support a [[m:]] = "multiple", and [[n:]] = "neutral" and [[f:]] = "factional" name space. We select the best of each behind the scenes, rather than hardwiring assumptions about that into the article itself. Why not? We already point to [[w:]] articles which are ever-changing... so why not ever-changing redirects?

::I'm not understanding what you are getting at with these namespaces. Please elaborate.

:::See [[interwiki link standard]] first. When that works, we will want some abbreviations. If I think [[Wikinfo]] has the best [[multiple point of view]] in English then [[m:]] should go to [[en:Wikinfo:]], but if [[Wikipedia]] has the only article in French then [[m:]] should go to [[fr:Wikipedia:]], etc.. We need a way to make faction-specific (maybe even individualized) interwiki links. Note this only works if article titles are identical or there is very disciplined use of redirects for all possible titles (which is best anyway).

:''We should copy and rewrite the articles we refer to in the [[Meta-Wikipedia]] space, as these are not in general relevant to [[Consumerium]] or even to [[mediawiki]]. Rewrites could help get some concepts clearer, and link them to the issues here.''

We certainly need to get [[GetWiki]] to run a test-wiki to see how it is different and maybe use [[Wikinfo]] or use [[Wikipedia]] as a user [[preference]].

:A good first step - the user could set where [[w:]] points for their purposes. Why not ask the GetWiki developers for this kind of feature? I'm sure they'll see the need for it. There should be arbitrary code possible to figure out where [[m:]], [[w:]], [[f:]], [[n:]] go. Maybe there already is?

:Hmm... no point asking [[M.R.M._Parrott]] anything. Better to find people of a rational and [[troll-friendly]]/progressive bent to do yet another fork that [[Consumerium]] can share with [[Recyclopedia]]. There is really no point in trying to collaborate with one's ideological opposites on software projects. Mr. Parrott is a Kantian Platonist, and he further seems to be a narcissist, if one is to practice the same psychiatry on him that he applies to others. Not a reliable partner for anything. [[Trolls]] are done with him. He has seriously failed the test.

----

'''[[GetWiki]]: [[critical point of view]]''' is that the software is new, has some bugs, notably in making an [[interwiki link standard]] difficult to express (which [[MediaWiki]] does not) which may be deliberate sabotage for commercial purposes. However its primary drawback is its primary developer, [[M.R.M. Parrott]]. Here is a sample of his [[sysop vandalism]] on [[Wikinfo]]:

* (diff) (hist) . . Internet Encyclopedia:Deletion log; 03:27 . . Proteus (Talk) (deleted "Standard wiki URI": vandalism)
* (diff) (hist) . . GetWiki talk:Corpus; 03:23 . . Proteus (Talk) (restored link)
* (diff) (hist) . . Internet Encyclopedia:Deletion log; 03:19 . . Proteus (Talk) (deleted "Interwiki identity standard": vandalism)
* (diff) (hist) . . Internet Encyclopedia:Deletion log; 03:18 . . Proteus (Talk) (deleted "Wikinfo:Faction": vandalism)
* (diff) (hist) . . Internet Encyclopedia:Block log; 03:18 . . Proteus (Talk) (blocked "142.177.82.159": stop spamming NOW)
* (diff) (hist) . . GetWiki talk:Corpus; 03:14 . . 142.177.82.159 (Talk) (restore deleted names as redirects please, or at least don't object to their restoral as redirects; theory of conduct is not theory of behaviour, technological superiority implies moral inferiority)
* (diff) (hist) . . M GetWiki talk:Corpus; 03:09 . . Proteus (Talk) (updated link)
* (diff) (hist) . .N GetWiki talk:Corpus/InterWiki; 03:09 . . Proteus (Talk) (created page, moved materials)
* (diff) (hist) . . Internet Encyclopedia:Deletion log; 03:04 . . Proteus (Talk) (deleted "Talk:Standard wiki URI": redundant)
* (diff) (hist) . . Internet Encyclopedia:Deletion log; 03:03 . . Proteus (Talk) (deleted "Wikitext markup": vandalism)
* (diff) (hist) . . Internet Encyclopedia:Deletion log; 03:03 . . Proteus (Talk) (deleted "Wikitext": vandalism)
* (diff) (hist) . . Internet Encyclopedia:Deletion log; 03:03 . . Proteus (Talk) (deleted "Wikitax": vandalism)
* (diff) (hist) . . Internet Encyclopedia:Deletion log; 03:00 . . Proteus (Talk) (deleted "Standard wiki URI": redundant, moved to GetWiki talk:Corpus/InterWiki)
* (diff) (hist) . . Internet Encyclopedia:Deletion log; 02:57 . . Proteus (Talk) (deleted "Talk:Faction": vandalism)
* (diff) (hist) . . Internet Encyclopedia:Deletion log; 02:54 . . Proteus (Talk) (deleted "Wikinfo talk:Faction": redundant)
* (diff) (hist) . . Internet Encyclopedia:Deletion log; 02:53 . . Proteus (Talk) (deleted "Wikinfo:Faction": redundant, moved to GetWiki talk:Corpus/InterWiki)
* (diff) (hist) . . M Sympathetic point of view; 02:51 . . Proteus (Talk) (reverted)
* (diff) (hist) . . Internet Encyclopedia:Deletion log; 02:50 . . Proteus (Talk) (deleted "Interwiki identity standard": redundant, moved to GetWiki talk:Corpus/InterWiki)
* (diff) (hist) . . Sympathetic point of view; 02:49 . . 64.112.195.193 (Talk)
(diff) (hist) . . Internet Encyclopedia:Deletion log; 02:48 . . Proteus (Talk) (deleted "Interwiki link standard": redundant, moved to GetWiki talk:Corpus/InterWiki)
* (diff) (hist) . . Internet Encyclopedia:Deletion log; 02:46 . . Proteus (Talk) (deleted "Wikinfo:Languages": vandalism)
* (diff) (hist) . . M Trolls; 02:25 . . Proteus (Talk) (updated)
* (diff) (hist) . . Trolls; 02:24 . . Proteus (Talk) (updated)
* (diff) (hist) . . Caucasus by Levan Urushadze; 02:23 . . Levan Urushadze (Talk)
* (diff) (hist) . . M Trolls; 02:19 . . Proteus (Talk) (updated)
* (diff) (hist) . . Internet Encyclopedia:Protection log; 02:18 . . Proteus (Talk) (protected Trolls)
* (diff) (hist) . .N Trolls; 02:18 . . Proteus (Talk) (from consumerium (note changes here))

The log is unedited. Anyone who believes it is ethical for a sysop to edit a page and then immediately protect it to curtail comment is probably unethical. This is not the kind of person who should be deciding which features to add to Recyclopedia, [[Consumerium:Itself]] or any other [[deliberative democracy]]-based project, or indeed any [[troll-friendly]] project.

Anyone who thinks discussion of an [[interwiki link standard]] is only relevant to [[GetWiki]] must think there is nothing else managing the GFDL text corpus, like e.g. no mediawiki, which seems to reflect a commercial bias - ironic as he accuses [[trolls]] of [[spamming]] here! Most likely it is his own spamlike assertions that GetWiki will eventually solve the problem that motivates him to make it hard to find or compare any equivalent proposals on other [[large public wiki]]s. In any case breaking links or common article naming that enable standards is unethical. Clearly the obscure GetWiki_talk:Corpus/InterWiki page is not the place anyone will deliberately look for cross-wiki cross-platform discussion of the issue.

Such an arrogant attitude also assumes that Consumerium or [[Metaweb]] will never produce any software to work with that text either. Beyond that, anyone who deletes files that have standard names on several large public wikis without a redirect, is obviously doing so to censor comment.

Finally, note the self-righteous tone here. Anyone who believes that their technological superiority implies moral superiority, or that comment on policy is spamming, is either insane, or asserting a clear [[commercial point of view]] for their own gain.

Mr. Parrott's motives here are transparent. This is a good example of the kind of thing that must be strictly forbidden on Consudev:itself.

This strongly suggests that [[Consumerium:Itself]] must move off GetWiki as Mr. Parrott is highly unlikely to implement any features useful for more deliberative democracy directed methods, e.g. a [[faction]].

Whatever merits GetWiki has, it seems they are outweighed by the developer.

XML dump

2004-06-23T13:29:44Z

Trolling Consumerium:

[[Consumerium]] must be able to do an '''[[XML]] dump''' of the [[Content Wiki]] and [[Opinion Wiki]] at any time, if the material in them is [[GFDL]]:

The terms of the [[GFDL]] require certain access to [[source text]]. Any element of the [[GFDL text corpus]] must remain available in source form to anyone, and no page in it can be distributed without the URL of a source form that can be instantly retrieved by ''anyone''. This includes those "banned" by the [[sysop power structure]]. Mediawiki provides this with the [[Special:Export]] facility in recent versions, and for unblocked IP's with "edit page" or "view source" links on every page ''do [[MoinMoin]] or [[tikiwiki]]? on [[Usemod]] no one seems to ever block IPs either''.

We have [[Special:Export|XML-export]] enabled for this [[Development Wiki]] since the upgrade to the new [[MediaWiki]]-software, but the only [[wiki]]-[[software]] that currently supports the import is [[GetWiki]].

The GFDL guarantee also includes those who do not intend to use the mediawiki software. Bulk dumps are available only in [[MySQL dump]] format, which can be difficult software to run, and, is certainly not suitable for most purposes of a [[large public wiki]] (text searches, for instance, take an extraordinary amount of compute and disk time).

XML dump

2004-06-23T13:26:45Z

Trolling Consumerium:

[[Consumerium]] must be able to do an '''[[XML]] dump''' of the [[Content Wiki]] and [[Opinion Wiki]] at any time, if the material in them is [[GFDL]]:

The terms of the [[GFDL]] require certain access to [[source text]]. Any element of the [[GFDL text corpus]] must remain available in source form to anyone, and no page in it can be distributed without the URL of a source form that can be instantly retrieved by ''anyone''. This includes those "banned" by the [[sysop power structure]]. Mediawiki provides this with the [[Special:Export]] facility in recent versions, and for unblocked IP's with "edit page" or "view source" links on every page.

We have [[Special:Export|XML-export]] enabled for this [[Development Wiki]] since the upgrade to the new [[MediaWiki]]-software, but the only [[wiki]]-[[software]] that currently supports the import is [[GetWiki]].

The GFDL guarantee also includes those who do not intend to use the mediawiki software. Bulk dumps are available only in [[MySQL dump]] format, which can be difficult software to run, and, is certainly not suitable for most purposes of a [[large public wiki]] (text searches, for instance, take an extraordinary amount of compute and disk time).

Dueling POV

2004-06-23T13:05:29Z

Trolling Consumerium:

'''Dueling POV''' is a better name for the so-called [[neutral point of view]]. This contains important lessons for [[Wiki Management]] and how to handle [[conflicts between users]]. The following is from [[w:User_talk:Angela]], indicating what a central figure [[User:Angela]] is in these debates (all text was also released under GFDL and is by [[w:User:Ark30inf]] whose further opinions should be solicited perhaps here).

"Jimbo said on the mailing list during the RK thing (paraphrased) that it is his view that the best articles come from such partisans engaging in mortal combat with other partisans. I respectfully don't see that and instead see the best articles occurring where partisans from both sides write for the enemy, police their own kind, and treat seriously any and every criticism of their work rather than circling the wagons and defending it in a kneejerk fashion.

I've always tried to avoid being a utopian. But I feel that most of the regulars here regardless of political stripe could deal with that concept if that were the standard accepted here and insisted on. I'm figuring that either Wikipedia will mature and move that direction or someone will fork and try that philosophy. I'll keep watching because the project (ignoring methodology) is intriguing and useful. --Ark30inf

...

Oppositional philosophy

Angela, I think that's really a Jimbo thing. Jimbo believes that partisans fighting over articles produces the best articles. As long as that is true then many people who want to be collegial will be frustrated and leave. This place has gotten pretty far with the oppositional philosophy and I don't blame him for sticking with it. Its just not for me. -- Ark30inf"

GFDL text corpus

2004-06-23T13:03:05Z

Trolling Consumerium:

The '''GFDL text corpus''' is simply the [[text corpus]] that is under [[GFDL]]. The GFDL itself ensures that the original sources of such texts ''cannot'' control the disposition of the material (this is called the [[right to fork]]). Accordingly there are competing text bases in various places, such as the [[Internet Encyclopedia]] (which we might strongly support as Wikipedia has joined the [[enemy projects]], but is run with the assistance of [[Wikipedia]] developers, and therefore suspect in the eyes of [[troll]]s) and the Consumerium R&D wiki - where [[moral purchasing]] and [[comprehensive outcome]] and [[transparency]] are going to be more intensely examined than at any other GFDL-based service.

[[Trolls]] seek to achieve independence of user interface and access the GFDL text corpus itself directly through any user interface. This they are doing at present through use of tools they do not share with non-trolls, so little can be said about these. If this fails they may use legal means against [[software imperialism]], e.g. GFDL clauses violated by [[Wikipedia]], libel laws violated by [[sysop power structure]] which have turned Wikipedia into a [[libel pit]].

One problem is that most GFDL text is at present in a [[data jail]] inside [[MySQL dump]]s, which is not even close to satisfying the GFDL clauses requiring source text access. While a decompression utility provides access to the strings, only one software suite ([[mediawiki]]) can actually present it, as there is no [[wikitext standard]] - a form of [[developer usurpation]]?

Eventually, by a combination of legal and technical means, trolls will succeed, and the GFDL text corpus will be liberated and visible and editable as a whole, and it will be relatively easy to undo [[sysop vandalism]] and avoid [[cabal]]s.

At which point, a group something like [[m:The ideal Wikipedia board]] must be recruited to decide how best to evolve it to do some good for this planet...

GodKing

2004-06-23T12:58:11Z

Trolling Consumerium: rv

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.

Talk:Trolling

2004-06-15T23:22:05Z

Trolling Consumerium:

Right on! --[[User:Juxo|Juxo]] 18:01, 1 Jun 2004 (EEST)

:Yes, we might also differentiate between ordinary trolling, [[heroic trolling]] and truly [[magnificent trolling]]! Trolls must have a hierarchy since there is a [[Lowest Troll]]!

[[w:User:Mark Richards]]'s [http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2004-June/013572.html sarcastic comments] on the [[technological escalation]] by the Chinese government against [[Wikipedia]].

Talk:Troll

2004-06-10T21:10:35Z

Trolling Consumerium:

Before the internet, there are epithets of weirdo, geek, oddball,
screwball, crank, kook, crackpot, jester, queer, fruitcake, firebrand,
gadfly, hell-raiser, rabble-rouser, outsider, loner, desperado, witch.
Their owners exists everywhere, from your highschool to your
workplace. As you can see, trolls were not born with the internet. It
was with us from the dawn of time. It is of course oblivious to the
mainstream. After all, who like witches?
...
:At first i balked at being branded a troll. Now i revel it. I as a troll is
:rather recent, beginning and getting worse about in 1998. I have been
:using online discussion medium since 1990. Perhaps one day i'll write
:"how i became a troll". It is bound to be a tragedy. - Xah Lee

-------
Praise trolls!

-----------
''Here is the original '''troll''' definition recently censored at [[Meta-Wikipedia]] by enemy sysops, who are obviously terrified of the plain truth:''

The [[m:Legion of Trolls]] recognizes the following ranks for troll behavior, from lowest to highest:

*[[m:sysop]] is the lowest of the low, incapable of holding his own in debate, the sysop resorts to [[w:Wikipedia:Bans and blocks|IP bans]] and other technological tactics, based on the trust that the [[m:GodKing|Dictator]] has in him. They make truly wrong decisions, and have no clear basis for what they do - which is more or less random damage to the fabric of the Wikipedia.
*[[m:cretin]]s are better than sysops, since they actually raise issues that matter, and show what's wrong with training and orientation material or the pseudo-socialization process that passes for "[[community]]" on this system. Their articles are generally stubs, since they know very little about the actual topics; however, regardless of their shortcomings, cretins fancy themselves to be "editors". Their agendas are transparent, and in general uninteresting, and they plod along with 'good intentions' trying to 'fix things' which they just make worse; such users must be continually reverted.
*[[m:vandals]] are almost as low, for they justify the existence of sysops, but at least they do not cripple the entire project with the behavior, just a page or so at a time, and usually they give up. The main virtue that puts them higher on the scale than cretins, is that they distract and drive off sysops, which is a contribution that stands the test of time, whereas cretins don't do that nearly as well.
*[[m:authors]] write pedestrian articles that stand until something better comes along - they are best employed compiling lists, checking facts and asking dumb questions in Talk files, and usually log in by the same name as their body answers to on the street. They are not contemptible but they have no idea how their information is used, and they don't care, as long as they get to claim that their articles are "published".
*[[m:editors]] train authors to be better authors, and typically fix up things that authors don't really understand, without ever insulting them (if they do, they drop to cretins immediately, and if they drive away good authors, they are basically vandals, if they IP ban them, they drop to sysops, lowest of the low). Editors have specialties and should stick to them; they are likely to make big mistakes if they go beyond their limited understanding. They should be learning from authors all the time, and must trust other editors' judgement on topics that they simply don't care about. They are not creative but they are smart - typically they use pseudonyms but do not hide their body identities.
*[[ontologists]] solve the difficult name-space problems, noticing potential namespace conflicts far in advance, often proposing and advancing [[w:Wikipedia:WikiProjects]] when an area is well-defined and important. They ''actually understand how Wikipedia is used''! They argue fiercely but sparsely on Talk pages and etc., and in particular are responsible for arbitrating between editors and ending [[w:edit wars]] creatively. The best of them are very smart, but all of them are thorough, and this thoroughness is what marks them clearly. To ontologists the most important file in the Wikipedia is [[w:Wikipedia:Self-references]], since it marks what the Wiki itself thinks it is - its reflexive identity, its actual own self-image. An ontologist usually uses a pseudonym and does not reveal his body name. Or, alternatively, a constantly shifting IP with no name whatsoever, if s/he is engaged in cleaning up problems left by poor editors and previous ontologists.
*'''trolls''' solve the most difficult problems - they discourage and drive off the worst sysops, cretins, vandals, authors and editors - they challenge the ontologists. And, most heroically, they alter the project's conception of itself (while ontologists only track that). They ''actually understand how Wikipedia evolves''! They are always anonymous, and associate themselves either with an IP number or randomly changing usernames - most heroically, they use a static IP which exposes them to all of the problems, but none of the advantages, of attacks by sysops and etc... In addition. trolls have a very healthy sense of humor.

The troll solves the worst problems, which is inappropriate 'contributions' by the worst sysops, and ideally can drive a bad [[ontology|ontologist]] entirely out of the project.

All hail the '''troll'''!

'''See also''' [[m:Cabal]], [[m:Plato's ontology]], [[m:Internet trolling phenomena on Wikipedia]], [[m:Wikistress]] (often caused by sysops reacting to trolls, plus their own stupidity)

-----------

"Troll: In Icelandic mythology, Trolls were a race of giants. They appear in various Northern mythologies. In Norse mythology Trolls are represented as a type of goblin." - [http://www.fas.org/news/reference/probert/D4.HTM Norse mythology guide] See also [[Ragnarok]]

Talk:Troll

2004-06-10T21:10:17Z

Trolling Consumerium:

Before the internet, there are epithets of weirdo, geek, oddball,
screwball, crank, kook, crackpot, jester, queer, fruitcake, firebrand,
gadfly, hell-raiser, rabble-rouser, outsider, loner, desperado, witch.
Their owners exists everywhere, from your highschool to your
workplace. As you can see, trolls were not born with the internet. It
was with us from the dawn of time. It is of course oblivious to the
mainstream. After all, who like witches?
...
:At first i balked at being branded a troll. Now i revel it. I as a troll is
rather recent, beginning and getting worse about in 1998. I have been
using online discussion medium since 1990. Perhaps one day i'll write
"how i became a troll". It is bound to be a tragedy. - Xah Lee

-------
Praise trolls!

-----------
''Here is the original '''troll''' definition recently censored at [[Meta-Wikipedia]] by enemy sysops, who are obviously terrified of the plain truth:''

The [[m:Legion of Trolls]] recognizes the following ranks for troll behavior, from lowest to highest:

*[[m:sysop]] is the lowest of the low, incapable of holding his own in debate, the sysop resorts to [[w:Wikipedia:Bans and blocks|IP bans]] and other technological tactics, based on the trust that the [[m:GodKing|Dictator]] has in him. They make truly wrong decisions, and have no clear basis for what they do - which is more or less random damage to the fabric of the Wikipedia.
*[[m:cretin]]s are better than sysops, since they actually raise issues that matter, and show what's wrong with training and orientation material or the pseudo-socialization process that passes for "[[community]]" on this system. Their articles are generally stubs, since they know very little about the actual topics; however, regardless of their shortcomings, cretins fancy themselves to be "editors". Their agendas are transparent, and in general uninteresting, and they plod along with 'good intentions' trying to 'fix things' which they just make worse; such users must be continually reverted.
*[[m:vandals]] are almost as low, for they justify the existence of sysops, but at least they do not cripple the entire project with the behavior, just a page or so at a time, and usually they give up. The main virtue that puts them higher on the scale than cretins, is that they distract and drive off sysops, which is a contribution that stands the test of time, whereas cretins don't do that nearly as well.
*[[m:authors]] write pedestrian articles that stand until something better comes along - they are best employed compiling lists, checking facts and asking dumb questions in Talk files, and usually log in by the same name as their body answers to on the street. They are not contemptible but they have no idea how their information is used, and they don't care, as long as they get to claim that their articles are "published".
*[[m:editors]] train authors to be better authors, and typically fix up things that authors don't really understand, without ever insulting them (if they do, they drop to cretins immediately, and if they drive away good authors, they are basically vandals, if they IP ban them, they drop to sysops, lowest of the low). Editors have specialties and should stick to them; they are likely to make big mistakes if they go beyond their limited understanding. They should be learning from authors all the time, and must trust other editors' judgement on topics that they simply don't care about. They are not creative but they are smart - typically they use pseudonyms but do not hide their body identities.
*[[ontologists]] solve the difficult name-space problems, noticing potential namespace conflicts far in advance, often proposing and advancing [[w:Wikipedia:WikiProjects]] when an area is well-defined and important. They ''actually understand how Wikipedia is used''! They argue fiercely but sparsely on Talk pages and etc., and in particular are responsible for arbitrating between editors and ending [[w:edit wars]] creatively. The best of them are very smart, but all of them are thorough, and this thoroughness is what marks them clearly. To ontologists the most important file in the Wikipedia is [[w:Wikipedia:Self-references]], since it marks what the Wiki itself thinks it is - its reflexive identity, its actual own self-image. An ontologist usually uses a pseudonym and does not reveal his body name. Or, alternatively, a constantly shifting IP with no name whatsoever, if s/he is engaged in cleaning up problems left by poor editors and previous ontologists.
*'''trolls''' solve the most difficult problems - they discourage and drive off the worst sysops, cretins, vandals, authors and editors - they challenge the ontologists. And, most heroically, they alter the project's conception of itself (while ontologists only track that). They ''actually understand how Wikipedia evolves''! They are always anonymous, and associate themselves either with an IP number or randomly changing usernames - most heroically, they use a static IP which exposes them to all of the problems, but none of the advantages, of attacks by sysops and etc... In addition. trolls have a very healthy sense of humor.

The troll solves the worst problems, which is inappropriate 'contributions' by the worst sysops, and ideally can drive a bad [[ontology|ontologist]] entirely out of the project.

All hail the '''troll'''!

'''See also''' [[m:Cabal]], [[m:Plato's ontology]], [[m:Internet trolling phenomena on Wikipedia]], [[m:Wikistress]] (often caused by sysops reacting to trolls, plus their own stupidity)

-----------

"Troll: In Icelandic mythology, Trolls were a race of giants. They appear in various Northern mythologies. In Norse mythology Trolls are represented as a type of goblin." - [http://www.fas.org/news/reference/probert/D4.HTM Norse mythology guide] See also [[Ragnarok]]

Talk:Troll

2004-06-10T21:08:51Z

Trolling Consumerium: wikified version

Before the internet, there are epithets of weirdo, geek, oddball,
screwball, crank, kook, crackpot, jester, queer, fruitcake, firebrand,
gadfly, hell-raiser, rabble-rouser, outsider, loner, desperado, witch.
Their owners exists everywhere, from your highschool to your
workplace. As you can see, trolls were not born with the internet. It
was with us from the dawn of time. It is of course oblivious to the
mainstream. After all, who like witches?
...
At first i balked at being branded a troll. Now i revel it. I as a troll is
rather recent, beginning and getting worse about in 1998. I have been
using online discussion medium since 1990. Perhaps one day i'll write
"how i became a troll". It is bound to be a tragedy. - Xah Lee

-------
Praise trolls!

-----------
''Here is the original '''troll''' definition recently censored at [[Meta-Wikipedia]] by enemy sysops, who are obviously terrified of the plain truth:''

The [[m:Legion of Trolls]] recognizes the following ranks for troll behavior, from lowest to highest:

*[[m:sysop]] is the lowest of the low, incapable of holding his own in debate, the sysop resorts to [[w:Wikipedia:Bans and blocks|IP bans]] and other technological tactics, based on the trust that the [[m:GodKing|Dictator]] has in him. They make truly wrong decisions, and have no clear basis for what they do - which is more or less random damage to the fabric of the Wikipedia.
*[[m:cretin]]s are better than sysops, since they actually raise issues that matter, and show what's wrong with training and orientation material or the pseudo-socialization process that passes for "[[community]]" on this system. Their articles are generally stubs, since they know very little about the actual topics; however, regardless of their shortcomings, cretins fancy themselves to be "editors". Their agendas are transparent, and in general uninteresting, and they plod along with 'good intentions' trying to 'fix things' which they just make worse; such users must be continually reverted.
*[[m:vandals]] are almost as low, for they justify the existence of sysops, but at least they do not cripple the entire project with the behavior, just a page or so at a time, and usually they give up. The main virtue that puts them higher on the scale than cretins, is that they distract and drive off sysops, which is a contribution that stands the test of time, whereas cretins don't do that nearly as well.
*[[m:authors]] write pedestrian articles that stand until something better comes along - they are best employed compiling lists, checking facts and asking dumb questions in Talk files, and usually log in by the same name as their body answers to on the street. They are not contemptible but they have no idea how their information is used, and they don't care, as long as they get to claim that their articles are "published".
*[[m:editors]] train authors to be better authors, and typically fix up things that authors don't really understand, without ever insulting them (if they do, they drop to cretins immediately, and if they drive away good authors, they are basically vandals, if they IP ban them, they drop to sysops, lowest of the low). Editors have specialties and should stick to them; they are likely to make big mistakes if they go beyond their limited understanding. They should be learning from authors all the time, and must trust other editors' judgement on topics that they simply don't care about. They are not creative but they are smart - typically they use pseudonyms but do not hide their body identities.
*[[ontologists]] solve the difficult name-space problems, noticing potential namespace conflicts far in advance, often proposing and advancing [[w:Wikipedia:WikiProjects]] when an area is well-defined and important. They ''actually understand how Wikipedia is used''! They argue fiercely but sparsely on Talk pages and etc., and in particular are responsible for arbitrating between editors and ending [[w:edit wars]] creatively. The best of them are very smart, but all of them are thorough, and this thoroughness is what marks them clearly. To ontologists the most important file in the Wikipedia is [[w:Wikipedia:Self-references]], since it marks what the Wiki itself thinks it is - its reflexive identity, its actual own self-image. An ontologist usually uses a pseudonym and does not reveal his body name. Or, alternatively, a constantly shifting IP with no name whatsoever, if s/he is engaged in cleaning up problems left by poor editors and previous ontologists.
*'''trolls''' solve the most difficult problems - they discourage and drive off the worst sysops, cretins, vandals, authors and editors - they challenge the ontologists. And, most heroically, they alter the project's conception of itself (while ontologists only track that). They ''actually understand how Wikipedia evolves''! They are always anonymous, and associate themselves either with an IP number or randomly changing usernames - most heroically, they use a static IP which exposes them to all of the problems, but none of the advantages, of attacks by sysops and etc... In addition. trolls have a very healthy sense of humor.

The troll solves the worst problems, which is inappropriate 'contributions' by the worst sysops, and ideally can drive a bad [[ontology|ontologist]] entirely out of the project.

All hail the '''troll'''!

'''See also''' [[m:Cabal]], [[m:Plato's ontology]], [[m:Internet trolling phenomena on Wikipedia]], [[m:Wikistress]] (often caused by sysops reacting to trolls, plus their own stupidity)

-----------

"Troll: In Icelandic mythology, Trolls were a race of giants. They appear in various Northern mythologies. In Norse mythology Trolls are represented as a type of goblin." - [http://www.fas.org/news/reference/probert/D4.HTM Norse mythology guide] See also [[Ragnarok]]