Faction: Difference between revisions

330 bytes added ,  3 June 2004
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Two factions are currently directly supported by the wiki software itself, those being [[developers]] and [[sysops]]. These have, as a consequence of the software itself, powers to label and identify others as [[vandals]] (those who damage or delete pages or insert erroneous assertions). There are also [[trolls]] (who annoy other users but may be doing so for legitimate political or social reasons, i.e. not simple vandals). ''It is rather hotly contested whether there is any one faction of trolls, whether trolls cooperate in factions already, etc..''
Two factions are currently directly supported by the wiki software itself, those being [[developers]] and [[sysops]]. These have, as a consequence of the software itself, powers to label and identify others as [[vandals]] (those who damage or delete pages or insert erroneous assertions). There are also [[trolls]] (who annoy other users but may be doing so for legitimate political or social reasons, i.e. not simple vandals). ''It is rather hotly contested whether there is any one faction of trolls, whether trolls cooperate in factions already, etc..''


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


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