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Latest revision as of 22:27, 30 September 2004

An internet discussion forum is considered troll-friendly if it does not take steps to discourage trolling. Troll-friendly policies include:

• not banning or moderating accused trolls,
• not preventing the forum being accessed from open proxies,
• allowing anonymous posting or allowing easy creation of new accounts,
• not permitting deletions of materials based solely on accusation of authorship

Being troll-friendly implies also controls on the sysop power structure such as to prevent or restrict any sysop acting alone from:

• redefining trolling as vandalism arbitrarily
• selecting its own political labels on controversial topics
• subverting due process for any cases of outing or alleged and collective identity confusion, in particular, banning all "user X is user Y" class of comments as irrelevant or biasing

Because controversies on these issues are common, usage of this phrase has also become very common:

• "We also have troll friendly proxies," - brawl-hall.com
• "VT is definitely a troll-friendly environment, but I make a habit

of using the report option when they get too far out of line." - re: VersionTracker

• " Fanhome is a Troll friendly environment. ... Yet here you are. Like I said,

Fanhome is Troll-friendly." - Vancouver Canucks "FanHome" site

Some services say as explicit matter of policy that they are not troll-friendly. For instance, Wikipedia goes on wiki witchhunts against presumed trolls who question its sysop power structure. The term troll-friendly is quite common:

• "We are not Troll friendly. Postings that have been placed on the boards to disrupt the flow of conversation will be removed..." - CruiseAddicts.com forum guidelines

troll-friendly politics as usual

Troll-friendly wiki management practices are designed to accomodate the New Troll point of view as much as possible. Rather than attempting to classify, categorize, restrict and challenge what trolls do, it attempts instead to engage them using political virtues:

• prudence,
• conciliation,
• compromise,
• variety,
• adaptability, and
• liveliness.

These democratic values were listed by Bernard Crick as alternatives to ideology or any "absolute-sounding ethic".

Very tellingly, the article that is supposed to explain this is a mere stub at Wikipedia. This will not surprise anyone familiar with their GodKing or sysop power structure, which lacks very considerably in these virtues.

trolling, trusting, process and forgiving

Any troll-friendly system or social software-based service assumes that built trust is very low, found trust is very high. It further assumes that grown trust will not happen unless a degree of politics as usual is allowed to apply in that system. This seems to be one motivation for proposing explicit faction support.

The main motive for troll-friendly policy is that consensus has to form on the basis of strict due process. Low-integrity editors must be "driven off":

Trolls believe that when someone has actively participated in building a sysop power structure that engages in ad hominem revert, ad hominem delete, witch-hunt, inquisitor, psychiatry, libel and echo chamber tactics, under the same identity, they should be actively driven off by trolls, and good riddance. If they wish this not to happen, they should make a new identity, and change their behaviour under the old one on any large public wiki where they are known for this inexcusable sysop vandalism - probably also giving up any position in the sysop power structure as well.

If they do all this and become an advocate for true soft security at least in cases other than simple vandalism, and become widely known for changing their spots, at that point, trolls usually say it is the obligation of any troll-friendly wiki to not only accept them back, but honour their conversion to the ways of trolls...

Implications for Anarchopedia:Itself

For Anarchopedia, this means sysops should not push their luck or assume they are in charge of every faction or can resolve political dispute when people devote their lives to that in the real world and fail. In the long term it means that the Anarchopedia:Social club shouldn't over-ride consensus rules.

References

Adapted from the Consumerium article Troll-friendly, used under the GNU Free Documentation License.

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Feedback

Should Anarchopedia be a troll-friendly wiki? Enter your beliefs here

Given the demonstrated ability of trolls to generate great reams of nonsense and provoke senseless quarreling they consititute a major challenge to freedom of expression. FJB 08:41, 30 Sep 2004 (CDT)

• There are only differences between constructive and destructive behavior. I prefer explanations about any controversal theme, not any kind of restriction so far as person is constructive (i.e.: if someone thinks something, and someone else thinks something else it is a good solution to explain both thoughts). We are not making a main stream encyclopedia, we are making an anarchist encyclopedia... i.e.: If a troll is adding dissident thought, I would defend that troll; if it is destructive, I would not. Also, sysops are responsible to community; the community is not responsible to sysops. Personally, I am just the maintainer and I hope that the community can articulate their sysops (I'll give sysop/bureaucrat permissions to anyone who has community support). In general, fascists and social-darwinists (extreme liberals) are not welcome here; but I think there is enough space here for black, red, green etc. anarchists and even social-democrats. (I hope that my explanation is clear because my English is not always clear ;) ) --Millosh 14:12, 30 Sep 2004 (CDT)