Identity dispute

Identity dispute arises when claimed identity cannot be verified ie. that someone is who they are claiming to be or when anonymous users (anonymous users may in fact be trolls that frequent the media in question) that refuse to take an identity thus existing (or perhaps non-existing) in the social club as non-persons or using pseudonyms

heading it off

Collective and alleged and ambiguous identity are all problematic. The first step is an interwiki identity standard so that those who seek to claim a name on several large public wikis can do so quickly and unambiguously - this avoids much confusion. As trolls enter, the second step is a way to place an IP number or login in a faction, which it can move from to another faction, but may not totally defaction itself. That way, signals can be sent to others that this IP number originates controversial edits consistently, so it can be watched by those who think so. It also makes the dispute a bit less personal and avoids repute debates and echo chambers. Funded trolls would likely require a third step involving some sysop power structure under supervision of Consumerium Governance Organization.

See Noise vs. Signal for the different approach to take in each wiki - research needs a somewhat looser standard than the final published information that becomes the Consumerium buying signal.

Troll point of view

This can be seen as a subset of a political dispute in that a political dispute may involve accusations of real or manufactured identity disputes as a form of political battle

Some trolls claim that some ideologies claim that identity and politics itself are just forms of neutrality dispute.

Trolls consider the whole concept of identity dispute stupid, and it is the reason for the many problems of such projects as Wikipedia, which accept and promote such ideologies, and attract believers in them, who eventually degrade and destroy the capacity of the project itself to deal with political dispute, and promote noxious personalities.

Trolls promote the political virtues instead, and reject identity that is not factionally defined.

Failing to recognize the concept of an identity dispute leads directly to sysop vandalism as reverts occur simply because of what sysops believe or suspect about identity.

This is one of many reasons why trolls advocate foment ambiguity and not use real names, particularly if constant pseudonyms are allowed.

See conceptual metaphor for the "green" and God's Eye View for the "grey" way to settle such debates. The latter leads to trust in one GodKing. The former may lead to a greater role for trolls. There are reasons to avoid either extreme.

Non-troll point of view

Probably the most realistic view is that identity and other politics disputes are inevitable and normal and part of language and linguistic relationships, but they have to be contained using some methods such as different levels of identification ranging from anonymous users to normal users to verified users.

It is not good to let trolls totally escape all accountability and it is also not good to let outing problems determine who participates in the Wikis. A troll's anonymity is approximately equal to a random stranger on the street, and a troll's risk of immediate pursuit is similar also: there may be valid reasons to believe that edits under one IP address made to several large public wikis in short succession are the same person, (e.g. to this page but also to the Wikipedia page on immediate pursuit); temporary actions might be taken on the basis of such conclusions. However, those with lasting impact on anyone's repute would be extremely unwise to undertake on such shallow evidence. This is quite similar to assumptions made on the basis of reports that "the suspect was a black male 25-35" or other profiling.

It could however be a deliberate alleged and collective identity tactic to trick sysop power structure into doing something very foolish.