Editing New Troll point of view

The '''New [[Troll]] [[point of view]]''' is that the [[neutral point of view]] isn't '''neutral''', and has [[systemic bias]] that favors big factions and often opresses minorities, that can only be fixed by piling in [[legions of trolls]] of an [[dueling POV|competing view]] that claim to represent the '''true neutral point of view''', which is then naturally contested by those claiming to have the real [[NPOV]] due to '''might makes right''' mentality.  It is a warlike view of what knowledge is - which is appropriate, as [[knowledge is power]] and that tempts to go to war for the spoils of ruling.

Accordingly new [[trolls]] always assume that [[repute]] is either zero, or negative, and enter [[large public wiki]]s with the intent of working quietly until they are harassed and excluded by those who believe in positive repute, typically those in the [[sysop power structure]], or who believe that control or manipulation of technology, typically by [[developers]] is a necessary evil as no '''power structure''' is perfect but to avoid '''anarchy''' where there are [[potato]]s only for the thieves ( ie. vandals) '''a power structure is required to exist even if power is seldomly exercised'''

The [[Lowest Troll]] is whatever troll consistently favours the '''New Troll''' over the most trusted longstanding user.  Empowering this troll is the only way to prevent an [[insider culture]] from eventually skewing and biasing a [[large public wiki]], as there is thus no advantage whatsoever to those who suck up to power.  This is the most [[troll-friendly]] of the [[wiki best practices]].

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== On this wiki's philosophy of trolling, and its relation to SoftSecurity ==
The http://develop.consumerium.org wiki contains an interesting and peculiar philosophy of trolling.

=== Definition of trolling ===
[[Trolling]] is defined [[Troll|in the article about "The Troll"]] along the lines of "...a term of abuse that is levelled both at genuinely problematic users and users with contentious but potentially legitimate views." 

:"A wiki is by contrast troll-hostile and ruled by a GodKing if "deliberately disrupting work... in order to foster change, etc." can be unilaterally labelled as "problematic trolling" by one person or a small group, e.g. Jim Wales" (from [[Troll|here]])

:"In general internet terms, trolling can be described as making an undefended and polarised statement, to stimulate a large and reactive response. This annoys many people because it makes the culture unwelcoming to the newbie who is not used to seeing serious stuff mixed with '''[[w:BOFH|BOFH attitude or tongue-on-the-cheek style]]'''. However, what constitutes "undefended" is usually entirely up to the observer.

However, the entire [http://consumerium.org Consumerium project] is [[Troll|seen]] as one big '''"troll" against powerful corporations, governments and other real life power structures'''

==== Anonimity ====
:"One view of "real trolls" is that they are those who wilfully agree with Foucault and so reject both authorship and the association of authorship with fiction. To trolls, there is no such thing as an individual "troll", so the use of the term in the singular is confined to sysops." (from [[Troll|here]]).

==== Relationship to other definitions of trolling ====
The Consumerium school's definition of trolls is notably lacking an aspect of "lying to and messing with people for a joke at their expense". Compare to other sources:

:"Trolls are for fun. The object of recreational trolling is to sit back and laugh at all those gullible idiots that will believe *anything*." (from [http://www.urban75.com/Mag/troll.html here])

:"Trolling is a game about identity deception, albeit one that is played without the consent of most of the players. The troll attempts to pass as a legitimate participant, sharing the group's common interests and concerns; the newsgroups members, if they are cognizant of trolls and other identity deceptions, attempt to both distinguish real from trolling postings and, upon judging a poster a troll, make the offending poster leave the group." (Donath, 1999, p. 45)

Of course, maybe "the Consumerium school of pro-troll philosophy" is just one big joke at the expense of anyone who believes that it exists. There's certainly some evidence that some troll(s) on Consumerium feel this way (see [[142.177.X.X|bottom of this page]]).

=== Relationship to "soft security" ===
The Consumerium school shares with the "soft security" school a distaste of "hard security". Similar to the view of hardcore proponents of soft security, use of hard security is permitted when all other avenues are exhausted, but this is considered a semi-shameful failure on part of the person forced to wield it. [[Lowest Troll|On this page]] may be found a joking prescription for an apology if you have to use hard security.

The Consumerium school may be said to think along the same lines as the "soft security" school of thought, but to also think that "soft security" doesn't go far enough. Soft security (at least, some variants of it) feels that hard security ("technology solutions") should be replaced with "community solutions". Soft security advocates that a "community solution" include conflict resolution when possible, but resorts to social pressure and specifically to the community "closing ranks" against an offender when the conflict cannot be resolved. By contrast, the Consumerium school [[Sysop power structure|feels that]] social pressure and "closing ranks" is also abusive and should also be avoided.

=== Relativity/postmodernism ===
The underlying assumption behind this villification of people who most consider "community leaders" is that there is no way to objectively determine whether the target individual is actually harmful. 

The Consumerium philosophy attempts to limit the power of these sorts of subjective value judgements. The only thing that is "real" is power. The Consumerium school assumes that the world will always be mostly divided into various factions, who are willing to do sneaky things (for example, to violate FairProcess to kick out someone they consider "obviously harmful") to win.

The Consumerium prescription is not, however, to "assume good faith" all the time, no matter what. They don't think that ''individuals'' should always be nice to others whom they consider offenders (see, for example, the way that they treat "sysops" such as Jimbo Wales of Wikipedia). Rather, the prescription is that checks in the underlying ''social system'' prevent the community from considering any individual as "offender" in an objective sense. This is to serve as a check against [[groupthink]].

For a specific proposal as to these sorts of checks, see [[Sysop power structure]]

=== Due process ===
In general, there is a strong emphasis on DueProcess as a check against abuse of power:

:"A wiki is troll-friendly when a friendly troll gets due process, and consideration of his "fiction" as a peer to other fiction, without regard to reputation. That is usually all they want. " (from [[Troll|here]]).

=== Contrast with "soft security" ===
So, the underlying assumption of the Consumerium school is that power is the only reality and people won't play fair when they deeply disagree. Their philosophy allows individuals to be nasty to each other (because there cannot exist any neutral arbiter who could stop them), but attempts to prevent "the community" from taking sides (because this might lead to [[groupthink]]).

The underlying assumption of "soft security" is "assume good faith", i.e that most individuals, if given a chance, will be fair even to others with whom they disagree. Under "soft security", individuals are supposed to be nice (& even polite) to others. Even if the community decides to reject an individual, individuals are supposed to be polite while carrying this out. But SoftSecurity gives "the collective" a blank check to consider some things, and some people, as beneficial and others as harmful. 

Another difference between the two philosophies is their attitude towards disruption. Consider an individual who 'deliberately disrupts work... in order to foster change, etc.'

Soft security would say that the individual is working against the interests of the community, and that the community should protect itself. The Consumerium school says that disruption is sometimes necessary, and therefore almost al disruption be tolerated (since no one is in a position to say which disruption is good and which is bad).

=== Positive reputation considered evil ===
The Consumerium pro-troll philosophy [[Repute|holds that]] a system where individuals can acquire positive reputation is a bad idea and leads to power and hence to abuses of power. Incredibly (perhaps as a joke?) some within the Consumerium school apparently [[Repute|believe]] that reputation is useful, but only negative reputation, i.e. the best situation is where individuals can have bad reputations, but no one can ever have a good reputation.

One approach according to these lines [[Repute|seen on Consumerium]] is: "any conflicts between users necessarily lowers the repute of all involved - thus whoever is involved in all disputes by default is "Lowest", and there is no assumption of any positive repute at all." This explains their name of [[Lowest Troll]] for one kind of what others might call a "community leader"; someone who takes the time to make peace in the community, and, when necessary, defend against trolls.

=== How the host should behave ===
The Consumerium school has a particularly bad view of "sysops", what other might call "hosts". A bad sysop is what "soft security" would call a GodKing. 

In "soft security", a arrogant host may be considered a GodKing, but for the most part only the use of "hard security" is thought to be a sin. By contrast, the Consumerium school faults any community leader for any abusive use of ''their positive reputation in the community''. "Abusive," though, is defined quite broadly, and encompasses any effort to rally the community against perceived harmful individuals or points of view. 

By contrast, the [[Lowest Troll]] is the Consumerium model for good leadership. The [[Lowest Troll]] actively fights [[groupthink]] by favoring outsiders instead of reputable community members:

:"The Lowest Troll is whatever troll consistently favours the New Troll over the most trusted longstanding user. Empowering this troll is the only way to prevent an insider culture from eventually destroying a large public wiki, as..." (from [[New Troll point of view|here]])

=== Token Foucault reference ===

As expected for a postmodernish philosophy, the philosophy of Foucault makes a [[Troll|confusing cameo]]:

:"The author does not precede the works; he is a certain functional principle by which, in our culture, one limits, excludes, chooses and impedes the free circulation of fiction." - Michel Foucault 

=== Further reading ===
* [[Lowest Troll]]
* [[Soft security]]
* [[Troll]]
* [[Trolls]]
* [[New Troll point of view]]
* [[Repute]]
* [[Driven off by trolls]]
* [[Friendly troll]]
* [[Trolling]]
* [[Sysop power structure]]
* [[Sysopism]]