Wiki Trolling

Dark side of the net does exist. WikiTrolling, perceived or otherwise, is a problem to be dealt with.

The TrollDefinition page has a section on Distinctions which I think is not complete. I created this page because its name can be employed easier in other pages. Be my guest to make more appropriate improvements.

Often I tend to dismiss another persons repeated "unreasonable" behavior as baiting and trolling, I had TrollColoredGlasses on without being aware of it.

Note typically it is my "subjective" assessment that has labelled a particular communication session as "unreasonable". It may or may not be viewed as such by third parties.
So my standard response is LetHotPagesCool. It could just be I am tired and not sufficiently alert to what the other party is communicating.

It is not that the other party is faultless. Often an impartial observer could agree the other side could have behaved differently. For example, maybe they could have done more research, read more wiki material, etc.

At the least they should communicate in a manner I can comprehend properly :)

But we are dealing with an imperfect world. The other party did not have enough time, and neither do we.

The other day I mistook a page delete by the creator as a troll trying to stir things up. I was edgy after the recent (early 05) problems and the fallout (diminished community participation). In that instance the damages were limited because the other party (wrongly suspected of being a troll) did not want to become a member of the community anyway.

So at what point during the dialog that we "establish" there is trolling going on, and how better to improve our communication (with limited resources) so that we are not perceived as trolls by others?

Reading TrollDefinition has not helped to resolved that. Perhaps no hard and fast rule exist either.

Later. Found in WikiPedia a description of "misidentified trolls" at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:What_is_a_troll

Looking at an example of what's already in the wiki

I chanced across the AllAbstractionsLie while wanting to link it with "Gartner Magic Quadrant" observations. In it I find a series of dialogue between WaldenMathews (raising questions) and SunirShah (responding). By the time the third question was raised (for more details) I started to appreciate the patience of Sunir.

But there is yet more request for clarifications. I would have concluded it was trollish behavior and responded in haste. Sunir responded differently.

In the end AlistairCockburn ended up writing a half page (printed) commentary on the discourse, in a subsequent section. Every thing turned out beautifully.

CategoryWiki CategoryCommunication