Trollism

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    Revision as of 19:12, 2 July 2004 by 142.177.108.38 (talk)

    Trollism is a wiki ideology that idealizes the activities of trolls. Trollists not only accept the label troll but they are proud to "be a troll", they claim to be trolls, and many use the word "troll" in their user name. It's doubtful that this can be done without depriving the word troll of the meaning sysops apply (negative judgement from a dictator or group perspective) or creating a logical paradoxon. Either of which could be assumed to be an objective of trollist activities.

    Seen from the outside trollism concentrates on the valid points and positive effects of trolling and neglects its de-constructive content. So it appears as a simplification. Sysopism and Trollism seem to be two sides of the same coin: misuse of power. One is the result of the other in a hen-egg relationship and each of these ideologies claims to be necessary to control the negative effects of the other.

    While sysops claim to be the guardians of a "neutral point of view" which favours the existing participants, the trolls counter with their "New Troll point of view" which would favour the input of fresh and new perspectives from under-represented factions. This may be a simple right vs. left type of division, as exemplified by Wikipedia Red Faction who seem to be some of the most obvious exponents of trollism as such.

    However, there is a real difference in tactics: The main difference is that sysops misuse technology granted power and trolls seem to be exploiting linguistic powers such as the ability to write poetry, make puns, and create conceptual metaphors that reinforce their resistance to the sysop power structure. It is not clear that trollist activities even imply belief in trollism, the ideology may be projected as a farce or mockery of the beliefs of the hated sysops.

    Controllism on the other hand seems to be a belief that trolls can somehow be made into "not trolls" by putting troll language on top of sysop activity. This usually does not fool the trolls!

    See also: Wikiism.