Identity dispute

Revision as of 03:58, 22 December 2003 by 142.177.106.159 (talk)

See w:Wikipedia:identity dispute for what this is. It's a "straw man" policy suggestion on something that will probably be even more important at Consumerium, where there is even less agreement on how groups and interests ought to be defined, and more at stake.

This is generally a subset of a political dispute. Some ideologies claim that identity and politics itself are just forms of neutrality dispute.

Trolls consider this very 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 to foment ambiguity and not use real names, particularly if constant pseudonyms are allowed.

Probably the most realistic view is that identity and other politics disputes are inevitable and normal and part of language and linguistic relationships. 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. It is not good to let trolls totally escape all accountability and it is also not good to let outing problems determine who participates.