Troll vandalism

WARNING This article is linked from Strange articles. Proceed with caution.

Attitudes to troll vandalism (group vandalism by trolls to counter sysop vandalism or to advance a POV that they believe is underrepresented by some systemic bias in neutral point of view) vary as much as attitudes to w:terrorism or w:insurgent activities.

are sysops trolls?

One major question is whether sysop vandalism is actually troll vandalism - whether sysops are trolls or (as claimed in New Troll point of view) the sysops' use of technological escalation makes them deserve what they get and denies them the protections that trolls deserve.

The Sysop Vandal point of view is that troll vandalism is just group vandalism and (of course) that sysops cannot be vandals simply for opposing it even with technological escalation. See Recyclopedia and SOLLOG for typically controversial cases where these distinctions are at issue.

In the SOLLOG case, it is not clear if wikipediasucks.com actually has engaged in vandalbot design or other technological escalation. If his then the pro-SOLLOG forces have become their own sysop power structure and their struggle with the sysops is no longer a troll-sysop struggle nor a troll war between those with equal power relationships, but rather, a simple arms race between two groups using sysop vandalism. In that case, neither would be any morally superior to the other, they would just be two groups using different technology, at the same moral level.

Probably how one views this depends on your faction.