Editing Trolls

[[Image:Trollboele.jpg|thumb|right|500px|Welcome to Trollböle, lit. abode of the trolls]]

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

The role of '''trolls''' in [[Consumerium]] is unclear.  There is not even an agreement on what is a [[troll]] and what they generally do.  What is clear is that some think it is insulting to call someone a troll, and others take pride in being trolls, or called trolls.  If you read "[[Trolls]] believe..." or "[[Trolls]] request..." or other use of "'''trolls'''" as a [[pronoun]], that is a sure sign you are dealing with someone who self-identifies with trolls.  Such people can be assumed to share IP numbers to get around blocks, to freely offer passwords to each other, quote each others texts without any attribution, and to [[foment ambiguity]] in ways that make it simply impossible to tell "who wrote what", at least [[beyond a reasonable doubt]]. They can also be assumed to be a single person who is simply too cowardly to take responsibility for anything he says; see [http://develop.consumerium.org/wiki/index.php?title=Craig_Hubley&oldid=5060 the pre-censorship version] of [[Craig Hubley]] for one such assumption, probably by a bunch of [[witch hunt|corrupt Wikimedian sysop-vandals]].

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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