Wikipedia talk:What is a troll?

message: There is a form of law that is not codified.  When a community acts as if a thing were a law for a long time, then this common practice begins to have the force of law.  This concept of desseutude came about because of trade disputes.  However, I think it applies to the things that WP:POINT is trying to cover.  The problem is that no one can announce a "semi-law" in desseutude.  It has to be recognized as simply having been that way.  (E.g. policy states that VfU is for undeleting and that nothing can be undeleted or recreated until the vote takes place.  However, many folks will undelete or recreate and then wait for the vote, as if it were VfD-lite.  Law says no.  Desseutude says yes.)  Thus, no one can make a policy proposal, have it fail, and then claim that it's "semi-policy" because folks are obeying it.  Instead, we have to leave frustrated those people who insist that everything be written down and that everything that is not forbidden is allowed.  The point of Wikipedia is to be community based in editing and laws, and we all find that inconvenient.  We all wish there were a judge and a court that could interpret the wise words of our founding fathers and establish precedent.  We'd know what to do, then.  A lot of what Snowspinner and others do in the name of "semi-policy" doesn't bother me, as I think it's really a case of community standards, but I agree enough with Zocky to say that claiming that there is a law or policy that's supported by the part of Wikipedia that counts is inappropriate.  Geogre 04:16, 12 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: At the beginning of each arbitration case decision page, you'll see a list of principles applied in the case. Some of these quote policy, some attempt to put common sensible practice into words - the idea being to come up with something that wouldn't make people go "wtf?!" Note that if you look at the original proposed decision pages, you'll often see disagreement and discussion between arbitrators in these things. "Desseutude" appears to be the concept in question - David Gerard 16:41, 19 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Desseutude

message: It seems a more appropriate and useful title (e.g. for first-time users seeing it in a list) would be something more active, like "No trolling" or "Don't be a troll".  Does anyone have any opinion about that kind of name change? -- Beland 18:23, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Since the question of what is a troll is so debatable, I think that the current title is appropriate. Besides, giving it the title of "Don't be a troll" is just as insulting as m:Don't be a dick, and therefore would violate No personal attacks if you used that article title in a discussion. I would suggest not even creating a redirect to this page using that title. BlankVerse ∅  05:25, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Renaming this page 

message: :Trolling is deliberate and intentional attempts to disrupt the usability of Wikipedia for its editors, administrators, developers, and other people who work to create content for and help run Wikipedia.
:This sentence should be changed. Since deliberate intent cannot be demonstrated, it is useless to put it in here. It would be like defining dangerous driving in terms of the engine revs, only the driver has access to that information. Removing it, the sentence reads:
:Trolling is an attempt to disrupt the usability of Wikipedia for its editors, administrators, developers, and other people who work to create content for and help run Wikipedia.
:Furthermore, since the audience of people listed includes everyone, it is redundent, leaving us with:
:Trolling is an attempt to disrupt the usability of Wikipedia.
:Much better?
:Except that we don't define disruption, or usability. This definition covers anything which makes Wikipedia more difficult to use, including requiring accounts, making policy and adding features like categories. Hmmm... Problematic? Norrath 6 July 2005 01:12 (UTC)
::What a surprise - when you take out the words that make the sentence work, the sentence stops working. Snowspinner July 6, 2005 01:16 (UTC)
Actually the sentence works just fine, it's just that once you take out the useless flourishes, how stupid it is is apparent. Norrath 6 July 2005 16:15 (UTC)
:I've no idea how you propose to get to the idea that deliberate intent is a useless flourish. Your dangerous driving analogy is strange, to say the least - perhaps the better metaphor would be "malice aforethought." Snowspinner July 6, 2005 16:25 (UTC)
The idea is useless flourish because the intent is unknowable. Since mind reading is impossible in personal conversation, let alone on the Internet, the search for intentions leads everyone down fruitless rabbitholes speculating what the intent could be when everyone knows that we cannot establish intent. Your ideas annoy me intensely. I have no way of knowing whether you intend to annoy me, or are honestly proposing things that I find annoying because you believe they are correct. Norrath 6 July 2005 16:30 (UTC)
:The intent remains the highly relevent thing, and is frankly, in many cases, fairly easy to divine. Snowspinner July 6, 2005 16:54 (UTC)
::Not really - this is the fundamental attribution error. For great justice. 21:44, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Revision

message: A "slow revert" may be a psychologically effective way of dealing with a troll, but it has the slight negative side effect of leaving dubious material standing for the average reader (note, not the average Wikipedian) to come across it... this seems like a bad idea. Palmiro | Talk 23:22, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Slow revert 

message: How long can you get banned for vandalising? is there a paid for that? Does it depend on how bad you do it?
Dumoren 09:03, 25 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: No idea what you mean by "a paid", but, yes, it depends on whether the account is used only for vandalism, on the nature of the vandalism, on what is vandalised, on the number of occurrences, etc. For example, a tirade of hate speech in an article about an ethnic group is likely to be dealt with far more severely than someone placing innocuous near-nonsense "graffiti" on a talk page. Anything up to and including a permanent block is possible. As far as I know, we've never sent the thugs around to beat anyone up. (That's a joke. I'm sure we haven't. And when we did, the thugs couldn't find him, anyway.) - Jmabel | Talk 19:44, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

text: No, we don't have a "legal code". We have a loose set of policies, guidelines, and procedures. - Jmabel | Talk 05:01, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Punishment 

message: Does anybody know, whether making the article systematically too long is trolling? Real example from Lithuanian Wikipedia: user Pleckaitis makes a lot of articles for small villages in Lithuania without any regard concerning common shape of those articles, he doubles information of templates, violates implicit importance of settlements (eg. London is a city with distance approximately 10,6 km southwards from Chelsea), makes useless subtitles and so on. There a hundreds of those articles, and nobody knows, how to deal with it. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 193.219.163.219 (talk • contribs) 26 October 2006.
: Usually, the English Wikipedia is not the place to discuss other Wikipedias. Describing the location of London relative to Chelsea is clearly inappropriate (the City of London is of far more historical importance than the Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, and Greater London emcompasses Chelsea). Other than that, there is nothing wrong with a detailed article on a relatively unimportant place (see Wedgwood, Seattle, Washington for an example; I happen to live there, but I am not the one who wrote most of this). I have no way to judge in the abstract whether someone's subtitles are useless.
: Presumably the Lithuanian Wikipedia has some equivalent of RFCs, mediation, and arbitration. That is probably how you are going to have to pursue this if you want to confront it. - Jmabel | Talk 20:56, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: New breed?

message: Just another view from history of a predecessor article.  Worth a debate:
A Wikipedia:troll war is an escalating conflict between multiple Wikipedia:trolls.  It is not the same as a flame war or edit war, as those do not involve inventing new troll methods and technologies.  These conflicts are especially disruptive as they ultimately result in new Internet trolling methods that spread to other services.
The only known long-term solution to such wars is the political virtues applied via the Wikipedia:arbitration committee.  A set of tactics for this was once advanced as the Wikipedia:troll bridge strategy.
It is not really that different from diplomacy as understood between warring nation-states, each of which has their own POV and is not inclined to compromise (see Wikipedia:POV warrior) and is inclined also towards technological conflict escalation.  
A major problem in Wikipedia is abuse of administrative powers in over-reaction to troll war - often called by trolls themselves "sysop vandalism":  using technological powers to try to force a solution in a troll war by favouring one side or another.
—Preceding unsigned comment added by Crekshin (talk • contribs) 11:42, 13 November 2006
: Nearly off topic, and not very useful, in my view. I would be against re-adding this. - Jmabel | Talk 06:36, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Another view 

message: We should add a comment on the psychology of trolling. For example: "Good trolls prey on the deepest insecurities of other readers and editors, exposing their inferiority complexes." 24.218.25.60 02:16, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Something that interpretive would likely be original research. Feezo <FONT SIZE="-2">(Talk)</FONT> 04:34, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Does WP:OR apply to essays?  I'm pretty sure that's only mandatory for articles. --Aervanath 17:52, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Whoops, you're right, I thought this was the talk page for troll (internet). Feezo <FONT SIZE="-2">(Talk)</FONT> 20:13, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Psychology 

message: The introduction to to this essay contains a lot of words. This is all well and good, but I believe there to be a single criteron that seperates the troll from the non-troll:
:A troll is primarily interested in the response to his or her edits, not the overall quality or veracity of a page. 
:Corollary: An earnest editor will not be put off the Wikipedia project by a lack of response. In fact, if their edits go unchanged and unchallenged, they will probably regard this is a good sign.
Vranak 22:00, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposal 

message: I believe that One Night In Hackney should be removed as a mod/sysop. Why? Because he trolled all the wrestling move pages, giving them delete tags because he doesn't like wrestling, and nothing more. I am surprised that no disciplinary action was taken, and there should be. --ChrisP2K5 06:57, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That user is not an admin.  Please note that this is not the place to report such issues.  Please try resolving your issue with this user on your respective talk pages.  If that is not possible, you may open a request for comment or request assistance on WP:ANI.  Thank you. --BigDT 05:52, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mod As Troll 

message: In and out of spanish internet, there are "Verso" performers. A "Verso" is a Story or Swindle that a verso-group performe against someone in internet or everyday life. Verso origin in Buenos Aires. Anselmocisneros 09:44, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Verso 

message: I will be happy to discuss any specific objections Irpen has to my edits here.  So far, the only hint I have from him is his edit summary which accuses me of POINT.  --Ideogram 18:56, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think it probably best if this conversation is terminated. Giano 20:34, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: If he doesn't want to discuss it, he doesn't get to edit it.  --Ideogram 20:45, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Irpen discuss 

message: Would it be worth adding this template to the "see also"? --Nate 10:23, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Template 

message: I have changed one sentence in the "Misplaced criticism" section. Previously, the sentence read: Criticism of the project, made constructively, is welcome from established contributors when shared in an appropriate place. I have removed the word "established" as constructive criticism shared in an appropriate place is welcome from any user, not just established/experienced ones. I don't view this as a particularly controversial change, but see no harm in sharing it on the talk page. Cheers, Black Falcon 05:25, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Change to "Misplaced criticism" section 

message: "Trolling refers to deliberate and intentional attempts to disrupt the usability of Wikipedia for its editors, administrators, developers, and other people who work to create content for and help run Wikipedia. Trolling is deliberate violation of the implicit rules of Internet social spaces. It necessarily involves a value judgement made by one user about the value of another's contribution. (Because of this it is considered not to be any more useful than the judgement 'I don't agree with you' by many users, who prefer to focus on behaviors instead of on presumed intent."
I've seen a lot of trolls in a lot of internet forums and projects of all sorts and I got to say that I'm not sure if even one of them gave the tiniest thought to whether their actions had an effect on the usability of the projects or forums they were trolling.  In fact it's quite hard to imagine any of them let alone most of them having so sophisticated an aim as disrupting usability, whether for spite or some other obscure motive.
Rather it has always seemed that what the troll craved most of all was to provoke as strong and as many responses to their actions/messages as possible.  In fact I would dare say that essentially every last troll if given the option to totally destroy the groups they torment would certainly refuse.  That would ruin their 'fun'.
Trolls are indeed the enemy.  Like any enemy to battle them you are well advised to try to understand them.  I have to say that as written the current essay is currently quite misleading about what makes trolls tick and that could conceivably hinder our efforts to deal with them.  Trolls crave reactions not disruption or destruction.Zebulin 10:48, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  wikipedia trolling definition seems a bit unconventional 

message: At the beginning of the section, it says "Trolling is a deliberate, is an attempt, in bad faith, to disrupt the editing of Wikipedia."  This almost seems like bad grammar or otherwise improper English.  I figured I should check here first before editing, but I think this first statement should be reworded to "Trolling is a deliberate attempt, in bad faith, to disrupt the editing of Wikipedia."  Minor revision, but it seems like better English to word it this way.  Anyone agree/disagree?  I didn't want to change it without approval from someone first, as this is, after all, a WP page.  --6xB 17:12, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I changed it to the old version; your version is fine too. —Centrx→talk • 02:44, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Edit to "Bad Faith" 

message: Is Trolling a subset of Vandalism, or vice versa? Mathiastck 09:13, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I would say that trolling is a subset of vandalism. Vandalism includes all manner of acts, whereas at least traditionally trolling refers to a certain kind of being inflammatory or pestering, such as in discussions, in order to evoke an over-active response. Page blanking in itself, for example, would not be trolling, whereas an actual troll is purposefully trying to be disruptive. However, someone thought to be trolling may not actually be trolling, but may just be misunderstood. —Centrx→talk • 15:51, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Is Trolling a Subset of Vandalism? 

message: This is a really good essay. I commend all editors who put this essay together. Unfortunately I noticed that the page did not get enough support to become a policy, I wonder why? However, the best thing to do is to try to improve the article further so it can become a policy, and the next best thing to do is to band an anti-troll committee, if it's feasible. Again, great work, and I'd love to help whenever possible. –Imdanumber1 (talk • contribs • email) 18:33, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Great essay! 

message: Throughout this article the term "newbie" is used repeatedly. Isn't there a better term? It seems like some people might take offense to it. Just my opinion, thanks!WacoJacko 20:47, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Newcomer is more appropriate?. —Imdanumber1 (talk • contribs • email) 03:18, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Yes, it does seem much more appropriate, thanks!WacoJacko 00:27, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Newbie?? 

message: Edit warring
The archetypal example of trolling is the deliberately inflammatory edit or post — saying something controversial specifically to cause a flame war. Inflammatory edits usually come from users who have a minority or controversial opinion and who sincerely believe that this view is inadequately represented by Wikipedia; trolls, however, will generally not seek consensus but will instead insist on a position without any regard for compromise.
If the first example of trolling, is actually trolling, that's not setting a good example. From how I read it, it sounds like "Anyone who sincerely believes a minority and controversial opinion , would be considered a troll"
That should really be fixed IMO.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.69.114.148 (talk) 00:26, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Edit Warring 

message: I have corrected what I see to be an error in the "Not feeding the trolls" section... phrasing was previously: 
it is easy to deal with those things.therfore suck my dick.. because i am a shark
 and I think that someone might have vandalized this line, but I am not sure. If I made a mistake, just revert it... I really don't know much of the formatting here... I'm used to other wiki sites. 72.73.113.55 (talk) 01:32, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Ahh, looks like someone already fixed it. 72.73.113.55 (talk) 01:35, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Not sure about wording 

message: I disagree with this reversion, as I believe the preceding paragraph shown in that diff does not adequately warn against being taken in by people who use the epithet "troll" as an ad hominem ploy to get people to stop listening to someone's ideas. Obuibo Mbstpo (talk) 21:12, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I disagree but if you want to include it, leave out "This is especially effective if there happens to be only one vocal opponent. This phenomenon is well-documented.http://wikitruth.info/index.php?title=Trolls", as this is not beneficial to the page in any way. Replace it with some guidance how to deal with people who apply such invalid labels. Equazcion •✗/C • 21:16, 13 Mar 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Let's see, what is the best way to deal with accusations of trolling? Like chess openings, each option has its own set of counterattacks. For instance, if you counter with "No, you're the troll," they can easily reply with, "Nuh uh!" which typically leads to "Uh huh!" followed by a repetition of moves and stalemate. On the other hand, if one replies with, "Yo mama's a troll," depending on their repertoire of yo mama jokes, they may easily trump it with any variety of replies forking off of, e.g., "Yo mama's so fat..." "Yo mama's so dumb..." etc. Yes, I can see this section is going to take a lot of work, perhaps it should be split off into its own article in order to avoid running into page size limitations. Obuibo Mbstpo (talk) 21:26, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: How about "Labeling someone a troll is easy as it allows you to avoid having to actually come up with an answer. If you really can't or won't come up with one, I won't force you. I'll just wait until someone else can." I don't know if this is proper to add to this essay but it's what I would say were someone to label me a troll. Equazcion •✗/C • 22:04, 13 Mar 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Deliberately using the epithet "troll" in order to shut down discussion 

message: What's "c.f." stand for?  It's not in http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=c.f. just says things like "cost and freight"  William Ortiz (talk) 07:52, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: "cf.", from Latin "confer" means ‘compare’ (from oed.com).  It's very old and commonly used in traditional areas, and is of the ilk of  i.e., id est (L.), that is (to say).  --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:04, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  "(c.f. MeatBall:ForestFire)" 

message: I was looking here to find the answer whether a "patent troll" is always bad faith. Or is it just a synonym for a "non-producing entity", either good faith or bad faith? (Bad faith includes (among other things?) entities that harrass companies with dubious claims, yet propose a settelement that is a little bit cheaper and/or considerably faster than a true court case - which takes a lot of time, and is very costly, in particular in the US).     
Rbakels (talk) 11:36, 3 August 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Patent troll