Lowest Troll

'Anarchopedia:Trolls are honoured to offer User:Millosh the title of...

In a large public wiki, the Lowest Troll is that troll who takes on the sad duty of engaging all the other trolls and trying to use political virtues on them, to make them not quite tame but also not quite wild, and integrate their trollish contributions into the GFDL text corpus. He, she, it, or they (Trolls having indeterminate gender and number) uses diplomacy and humour to avoid having to create a sysop power structure or any permission-based model at all. Particularly Lowly Trolls may act as lieutenants to take the "lowd" off the Lowest Troll, but this should not be mistaken for any kind of soft security system. It isn't, it's more of a game. The concept of "security" is not applicable to anyone seeking the truth. Those driven off by trolls should be those concealing the truth, not those exposing it.

If the Lowest Troll must put some limits on being troll-friendly, it is suggested to do so as an apology, an acknowledgement of that troll's own limits, rather than the sysop vigilantiism model of using technological superiority to claim moral superiority. What makes trolls better than sysops is that the trolls know that to use w:technological escalation is to become morally inferior by definition, i.e. technology is an evil way to solve a problem, and morality to sort out issues between people is a good way (see also Employability for the issue of technology displacing labour).

For instance here is a suggested kiss-off for someone who cannot be driven off by trolls and will not reform despite furious attempts to troll them into becoming proper trolls:

"I, the Lowest Troll, am sorry, Master Troll, but I find that the time that I with my inferior capacity to argue and comprehend your detailed arguments, is now impossible for me to justify given the range scope and apparent usefulness of your contributions. Thus I descend, like the vile creature that I am, to a sad measure, and feel I must block IP temporarily in order to give your many sage arguments the time and attention they truly deserve. If you return in some other guise, as a sock puppet perhaps, you may be able to elaborate, but preferably different arguments and issues, as I have not been able to fully absorb the ones you have so far advanced. Other Lowly Trolls are of course available to assist you in advancing your trollish views, even perhaps to form a dissensus that will displace me as Lowest, as some of them perhaps seek. No doubt their sharp critique and better ability to argue without resorting to vile technology, perhaps even on other large public wikis, is of more use to you than my poor skills as available in the limited time I can offer to your sage and great arguments here."

Some confuse the Lowest Troll with a GodKing. However, they are clearly not, as the GodKing claims moral superiority when he exercises his technological superiority or ownership powers, whereas the Lowest Troll is careful always to claim moral INFERIORITY whenever he uses these vile powers granted by power structures that have nothing to do with the truth itself. Also the LT never uses a vile ideology like virtual community or soft security to justify or reflect some community point of view. Excuses for what an LT does are always phrased regarding his or her or its or their own lack of time and cognition, and should always clearly reflect only his or her or its or their own cognition. Accordingly, other Lowly Trolls are under no obligation to copy or enforce that view, but can adopt quite different views and tactics. Diversity is good. Don't you think?

References

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