But higher level trolls and sock puppets can be fun and informative Especially if they work for the State Dept.

Or the Pentagon.

OK, so the articles indicate that they identify themselves. But still. It's mighty suspicious.

Posted November 19, 2007 12:24 PM by Josh Jasper

That is a beautiful analogy---perfect match.

I still do run across the problem of explaining such behavior to newcomers, though. The newcomer might be my younger sister, or someone who has not spent that much time online---and I've found the (relatively basic) concept of a troll to be somewhat difficult to explain. Perhaps because I cannot emphatize enough with the troll to try to get across its motivation to a third party.

There are probably a few good webpages (and I do remember one very nicely illustrated one about USENET stereotypes, but sadly not well enough to search for the link) that one can point newcomers to... Right?

Posted November 19, 2007 12:25 PM by Zeynep

Iirc, "Bored Now" is the comment of the Evil Willow, not the one between My Stepmother is an Alien and How I Met Your Mother (or, as they should be combined, How I Met Your Alien Stepmother).

Posted November 19, 2007 12:52 PM by Ken Houghton

Zeynep, you probably mean Flame Warriors.

Posted November 19, 2007 1:04 PM by Skwid

Ken, Vamp Willow says it several times. Real Willow says it right before she synlf Jneera.

Posted November 19, 2007 1:26 PM by Teresa Nielsen Hayden

Zeynep @ 2

Perhaps because I cannot emphatize enough with the troll to try to get across its motivation to a third party

The motivation is this startling discovery that you too have the power to, via a few well chosen words dropped casually into a discussion, instantly turn what seemd a previously sane environment into an angry trainwreck of a screaming shitstorm of madness hundreds and hundreds of posts long. Reliably, repeatedly. Preditably. Time after time after time. It's just like magic! Or at least just like dropping alkalai group metals into containers of water.

Okay so it's probably wouldn't be most people's first choice of superpower even for the wannabe supervillains among us, but unlike the the really cool stuff such as teleportation, mindreading, shapeshifting, laser-beam eyes, or waving your magic wand around and having reality bend interesting ways, it actually works reliably in the real world.

Which is a really quite amazingly cool thing for an otherwise imaginary evil superpower.

*cue villainous laughter and twirling of mustachios*

Posted November 19, 2007 1:33 PM by SKapusniak

"Bored now" should go on the Flamer Bingo card list. It can be very effective. There was a similar, more wordy entry in the Flamer Bingo thread, but this is great shorthand.

Posted November 19, 2007 1:42 PM by Earl Cooley III

Back in my moderator days, I always gave a virtual tip of the hat (often combined with other, less complimentary, gestures) to any troll who could actually get *around* my "bored now" response. Like all jaded moderators, after a while it really took some doing.

Posted November 19, 2007 1:55 PM by Tim

A concise explanation of trolls: "You know how some people are happy only when they're making other people unhappy? Well, there are people like that online too."

Posted November 19, 2007 2:08 PM by Lexica

Evidently Slate's Fraywatch columnist hasn't yet got to the "bored" state:

...many posts are so toxic that just reading them gives one the urge to rinse the eyes with soapy water. In my darker moods, well-meaning optimists reassure me that the internet is a distorted lens for viewing the human condition—that people sheltering behind anonymity express very different views than they'd profess in the public sphere. But, if this argument is true, then one has to wonder about that lynchpin of modern democratic governance—the secret ballot. After all, in their secrecy and insulation from personal accountability the ballot box and the internet are very much alike. If voters are as nasty in the polls as posters can be on the boards, then democratic theory might need a re-think.

Of course, for a dour Calvinist such as myself, message-board nastiness is merely another confirmation of the doctrine of total depravity.

Posted November 19, 2007 2:18 PM by Mark Gritter

"...after a while, your reaction will change to 'Bored now.'"

Except for when it's "Damn, he's triggered another suicide attempt." And, "Wow, people still think he's pretty cool, even so." Unfortunately, "bored now" doesn't keep me from hurting when that happens. Hannah Arendt's phrase "banality of evil" comes to mind.

Posted November 19, 2007 2:33 PM by Randolph Fritz

I tend to do my troll-watching on the Wikipedia Administrator's Notice Board/Incidents.

You don't so much get single drive-by behaviors (which I find unsatisfying, like popcorn, crunch and then they're gone), but there are some interesting long-running patterns. They're working through some of the secondary and tertiary effects of wanting to encourage anonymity and discourage sockpuppetry at the same time, and the results are not always very pretty.

It's very educational. And it's like a soap opera. Twofer!

Posted November 19, 2007 2:46 PM by abi

And, as if on cue, the Slashdot story of the moment!

Posted November 19, 2007 2:53 PM by Skwid

I like the Sunndydale reference. Just like they had an endless supply of vamps, the boards have an endless supply of trolls and energy creatures.

Sometimes, there just aren't enough wooden stakes.

Posted November 19, 2007 2:55 PM by Steve C.

#9 Lexica: ... "and online, they can get around a lot faster".

Posted November 19, 2007 4:02 PM by David Harmon

Hmmm... there's an interesting reminder on AN/I that careless troll-fighting can do more damage than the trolls themselves.

Basically, an admin banned a well-known editor with a good reputation and refused to say why, but insisted she had a good reason that she couldn't reveal. She claimed that half a dozen admins have seen the evidence, but wouldn't say who they were, and they didn't have time to get involved.

Then she realised the whole thing was a mistake and got the entire discussion courtesy blanked to protect the blocked editor. (He didn't ask for this, though he doesn't appear to object either.) Cue further controversy - and, as far as I can tell, the whole thing was done with good intentions.

Posted November 19, 2007 4:34 PM by makomk

(Good Willow, temporarily and controllably Evil Willow, recently said "Bored now" in the comic, in case anyone is keeping a list.)

Posted November 19, 2007 4:52 PM by ethan

makomk @16:
Yes, I've been following that one. Reminds me of the Bush administration's approach to trials of terrorists.

Short form: "The evidence reveals too much about our investigation methods to be heard in public, but trust us, it's good."

It may be good, but the secrecy is getting under some people's skin.

Posted November 19, 2007 4:55 PM by abi

ethan @ 17... Good Willow, temporarily and controllably Evil Willow

I thought that Willow was neither Good nor Evil, but it did suck the big one, aside from Val Kilmer as Mad Martigan.
("Not THAT Willow, Serge.")
Oops.

Posted November 19, 2007 5:11 PM by Serge

Serge @ #19 -

Ron Howard did that one. Howard can be an excellent director (Apollo 13, A Beautiful Mind), but he has helmed his share of stinkers - The Da Vinci Code comes to mind.

Posted November 19, 2007 5:20 PM by Steve C.

Steve C... In this case though, he was less than inspired, I think. It had some nifty spiky costume designs by Achilleos, if I remember correctly. Anyway. It was long ago, and the film is dead.

Posted November 19, 2007 5:27 PM by Serge

Josh @ 1: But higher level trolls and sock puppets can be fun and informative Especially if they work for the State Dept.

A Government-built sockpuppet made up of bits from several bloggers... Adam lives!

Posted November 19, 2007 5:32 PM by Paul Duncanson

For the other three of you who, like me, didn't get the original post, Sunnydale is, apparently, the setting for Buffy the Vampire Slayer, though I still can't tell if moderating an online forum is better or worse than being on Usenet.

I've never felt as far from the zeitgeist as I do this moment.

Posted November 19, 2007 5:39 PM by pb

Am I the only one who misses the cream of the crop of the old-time happy-go-lucky trolls?

You know what I mean if you were on usenet before 97 or so. These folks would start by saying "I love hitler and by the way I'm made of custard" or something, but they'd do so in such a way as to provoke the smartest people in the whole community to have a long, heated, insightful exchange with them. In the end, they'd cotton to the whole business, like any other good-intentioned prankster. If you went back and read the whole discussion, you'd realize that the smart people had made all of their best points, and the troll's posts were all a brilliant parody of the position they seemed to be espousing. It wasn't sabotage so much as performance art.

Surely, I'm not the only one who remembers this happening.

Where are the trolls of yesteryear?

Posted November 19, 2007 5:59 PM by lighthill

I'm afraid I just say knock them on the head and kick them into the magma pits. Does that sound agressive?

Posted November 19, 2007 6:05 PM by guthrie

abi, makomk, I find myself hoping that somewhere, somehow, an applied anthropology grad student is following the sausage-making at Wikipedia and will soon write an incisive dissertation on power and decission-making in the Wikipedia Zone.

Posted November 19, 2007 6:13 PM by JESR

Yes, JESR, thats a good point- have anthropology and other social sciences been applied properly to the internet yet? There is surely enough to get several hundred PhD's.

Posted November 19, 2007 6:45 PM by guthrie

abi @ 18:

All complicated by the fact that Wikipedia's sockpuppetry policy doesn't wholly forbid multiple identities. I think that's a mistake. It limits what may be done with them, though, but it's so tempting to cross over the line. A bright-line "No sockpuppetry" policy would be easier to keep.

Posted November 19, 2007 6:49 PM by Matthew Brown

I agree with Zeynep @ #2 (no surprise, as I'm sure we're both thinking of the same Usenet groups) about the beauty of the analogy.

And Z, you're only through what, almost-three seasons of Buffy? *grin*

Posted November 19, 2007 6:54 PM by Will "scifantasy" Frank

lighthill... What did the community of yore have against custard?

Posted November 19, 2007 7:17 PM by Serge

#24: Where are the trolls of yesteryear?

Wikipedia?

Posted November 19, 2007 7:37 PM by Jon Meltzer

#24: Where are the trolls of yesteryear?

Jon@31: Wikipedia?

He shoots. He scores!

;)

Posted November 19, 2007 7:41 PM by Greg London

#24: Where are the trolls of yesteryear?

Ted Frank's at the American Enterprise Institute, trolling the real world, isn't he?

Posted November 19, 2007 7:47 PM by Todd Larason

Mathew@28: All complicated by the fact that Wikipedia's sockpuppetry policy doesn't wholly forbid multiple identities. I think that's a mistake.

yeah, the biggest thing is it prevents a public monitoring of POV pushing.

Say Alice has a particular POV regarding topic T. Topic T spreads out into about a dozen different articles on wikipedia. Were Alice simply to go to each one of those articles as Alice and edit them, then it would be abundantly clear to any ijiot, that she's POV pushing.

So,

Alice creates multiple sock puppets. These are completely legal according to wikipedia. She then has each sock puppet work on different articles. Wikipedia policy says you can't use sockpuppets to stuff ballots on votes and such, so it isn't automatically illegal.

Certainly, POV pushing is against the rules, but how do you catch someone POV pushing other than by looking at all their edits in total and then making a subjective call.

Of course, if someone who's been at wikipedia a long time and is an admin, they'll skirt any questions about who their multiple accounts are and play coy, and say it's allowed by policy.

Of course POV pushing isn't allowed by policy, but it is impossible to catch POV pushing if you distribute your edits about a topic among numerous different sock puppets.

The admins will generally chime in and say they could check for abuse with a checkuser request, but then you'll have an admin checkuser another admin, give them a pass, keep all the data private, and tell all the other users "trust us".

Which not only encourages POV pushing via sockpuppets, but encourages and rewards alliance building.

Sockpuppets should be the first thing wikipedia policy forbids. No excuse.

Posted November 19, 2007 7:49 PM by Greg London

lighthill @ 24

I am indeed old enough to remember the somewhat good old days, when 'troll' was a verb, and trolling wasn't always totally malicious. Sometimes it was clever teasing of acquaintances rather than small minded harrasment of stranger. Sometimes I think about it and shed a virtual tear.

But you try and tell that to kids these days...

Posted November 19, 2007 7:51 PM by Steve Taylor

#24: Well, I think I was one of them, at least occasionally, though I won't lay claim to the "brilliant" tag. IIRC, Andrew Plotkin was an a.r.k. regular which virtually required one to do the humorously loony performance art sort of trolling, and he also shows up here occasionally. (Apologies to Andrew if I'm maligning him.)

I imagine that if there were any romantic wanna-be black magicians in Sunnyvale, and if they survived a while, their attitudes might also have changed to something like "No. Just no. Not funny any more."

Part of my attitude may come from having seen one valuable online community pretty much shattered. * That's probably the subject for another long post, someday.

[*] Not so much by trolls as by its own immune reaction to them. (And not just on Usenet, but in some of the private/offline forums it had spawned.)

Posted November 19, 2007 7:59 PM by Clifton Royston

#23 ::: pb winced:
For the other three of you who, like me, didn't get the original post, Sunnydale is, apparently, the setting for Buffy the Vampire Slayer, though I still can't tell if moderating an online forum is better or worse than being on Usenet.

I think I've finally gotten over explaining that I mean -Sunnyvale- not -Sunnydale- while providing addresses. It is worth noting, however, that -Sunnyvale- had an odd ability to prevent rain in a ragged circle about itself.

Posted November 19, 2007 8:05 PM by xeger

One of the fascinating things about being a veteran of various discussion forums is that you can figure out who is a crank and who is a troll and who is for real even if you don't understand the subject. I was reading a blog discussion of Garrett Lisi's paper (the one that went around as "surfer dude invents TOE", when it was more like "Physicist who likes to surf posts interesting paper on unification".) And it was like reading the blog meta post; the math was so entirely beyond me that it was all but noise, but I could still see the form!

Posted November 19, 2007 8:26 PM by tavella

xeger @ 37... I mean -Sunnyvale- not -Sunnydale

Drat. I was just about to ask Kathryn from Sunnyvale about her neighborhood.

Posted November 19, 2007 8:32 PM by Serge

Greg London at 34 says "yeah, the biggest thing is it prevents a public monitoring of POV pushing."

My observation of the dynamics of sockpuppetry on Wikipedia is that the ambiguity of the policy and the known existence of semilegitimate socks gives sock hunters a lever by which they can exert social control over people with whom they have disagreements. It can be used for POV pushing by the puppeteer, but lately the POV push has been from those detecting and exposing sockpuppets (or what they say are sockpuppets).

Posted November 19, 2007 9:30 PM by JESR

guthrie #27: have anthropology and other social sciences been applied properly to the internet yet?

They have, at least, to online gaming communities.

Posted November 19, 2007 9:30 PM by Earl Cooley III

Online gaming has a damn good reason to pay attention to this stuff - it's how we make our money. (Any discussion about online trolling/moderation can be applied with very few substitutions to some game mechanic or other, in some MMO. For example, Player vs Player gameplay is basically trolling, with axes. )

Posted November 19, 2007 9:58 PM by Jeremy Preacher

As Steve Taylor and Clifton Royston said, "trolling" used to mean something generally more benign, though that usage is long gone on the wider net.

As far as I know, the term actually originated on alt.folklore.urban as part of the phrase "trolling for newbies". There were certain topics that were so beaten to death that only a rank newbie would pipe up if you mentioned them, so people would occasionally do that just to watch them all chime in ("Didn't Monty Python make a three-sided record once?" was a favorite). It was all gentle and in-group, and disrupting the community wasn't the purpose. A.r.k and other groups generalized it to include the wacky crossposted performance art, but eventually it just became a synonym for flamebaiting or generally being a jerk.

Posted November 19, 2007 10:08 PM by Matt McIrvin

re 12: What's so terribly depressing is that I took a peek at AN/I and discovered that one of the people being blocked was a major participant in the whole "attack sites" mess, and in fact one of the more reasonable interested bystander types. Well, it turns out that he had two accounts (and was very open about it): one for editing and one for policy discussion. This is not exactly a no-no except that he had opposed the attack sites faction, which meant (supposedly) that his policy-only account existed to be disruptive. I suspect the real reason for two accounts was to protect the editing account from being blocked in retribution, a strategy which they've essentially proven to be correct. Meanwhile MONGO has set everything on its ear again by ignoring the outcome of the oversized and overwrought case on the attack sites not-ever-a-policy case and sticking it back in again anyway. Everyone else who was keeping an eye out for this is now in trouble for noticing and objecting. I think I've finally reached the point of being rid of the whole thing, except for finishing putting articles in for Virginia lighthouses, where I have a set of standard decent sources and can expect them to be undisturbed by cranks.

re 28: The "bright line" has proven to be a problem because their sockpuppetry detection methods are a mixture of "I know it when I see it" and IP tracing, which produces false positives in a lot of contexts. It gives the admins a lot of power to shut critics up (at least within the wiki-omphalos). Wikipedia's administration level is such a paradoxical mix of overall anarchy and local tyranny that it's very hard to say exactly how much or even when abuses are occurring; but it's hard to imagine that they aren't occurring.

A big drama source is the fact that the policies aren't fixed. This leads to constant gaming. The attempt to bend WP:NPA to lock out the critics of The Cabal pales in comparison the to the ongoing weirdness at "No Original Research" and "Reliable Sources". Really the only sane thing to do is ignore all this stuff and do what's right anyway.

Posted November 19, 2007 10:40 PM by C. Wingate

As a method for winning arguments on Wikipedia over the long term, slyly changing policy documents so that they support your position is old enough to have grey hairs. Of course, it doesn't work against anyone who's been there long enough to know that the current wording of them doesn't really matter - because of the fact that they could say anything at any given point. Allied to that is the general belief among such users that technicalities do not count.

C. Wingate @ 44: I don't think it's as clear cut as all that. The person that was blocked is a chronic user of serial and parallel identities, and has used half a dozen or so. None of which have a long history or a good reputation to keep; the vast majority of which have spent a lot of their time nosing into areas of controversy. It certainly can be fairly argued that someone whose major activity on Wikipedia is being drawn into any controversy they can find is not really being all that helpful.

Using a second account to keep controversy away from the first has also been forbidden for a long time (c.f. "Good Hand, Bad Hand accounts").

Of course, a good part of what trolls love to play at is to cause levels of paranoia such that innocent victims get hurt, and I think this has been happening a bit of late.

Despite all the histrionics, the policy on the ground as to "attack sites" is pretty much settled. No linking to off-site stuff to cause trouble. No removing sources or useful external links because someone could in theory find something attacking or libellous somewhere in there. However, some people (on both sides) have gotten addicted to the drama and/or are having trouble backing down gracefully from extreme positions.

Posted November 19, 2007 10:54 PM by Matthew Brown

#27 ::: guthrie wondered:
have anthropology and other social sciences been applied properly to the internet yet? There is surely enough to get several hundred PhD's.

Yes, with great exuberance, for at least the past 15 years.

Posted November 19, 2007 11:56 PM by xeger

"Trolling for rough trade on the shuttle deck" -- Sweet Savage Star Trek

Posted November 20, 2007 12:09 AM by Earl Cooley III

Speaking of trolls, we had an exchange on my LiveJoournal that started with my saying that I liked Beowulf. The Krull Syndrome was then brought up and, next thing you know, we were wondering whether or not Sauron's orcs used latrines when on the campaign trail.

Posted November 20, 2007 12:31 AM by Serge

There are some forums that react to trolls and sockpuppets with caricature, parody, ridicule, versification,lampooning... which can inflict a certain amount of derailment and debasing and disempowerment and disenfranchising of the person and organization(s) ridiculed/parodied/lampoons.

There have been some major blossomings of creativity on Making Light, instigated by over-the-top trolls and sockpuppets being taking to ridicule by various, or even significant numbers, of the contributors here....

Posted November 20, 2007 1:25 AM by Paula Lieberman

Paula Lieberman @ 49:

There are some forums that react to trolls and sockpuppets with caricature, parody, ridicule, versification,lampooning... which can inflict a certain amount of derailment and debasing and disempowerment and disenfranchising of the person and organization(s) ridiculed/parodied/lampoons.

Oh.   Right.   Trolling for newbies.   Never mind.

Posted November 20, 2007 2:22 AM by Pyre

Speaking of Wikipedia, you know it's become an established part of the world when University Challenge does a round of questions on it!

Posted November 20, 2007 3:15 AM by Martin Wisse

Serge@48: and, next thing you know, we were wondering whether or not Sauron's orcs used latrines when on the campaign trail.

Yeah, that comes up a lot.

Posted November 20, 2007 7:26 AM by Greg London

Greg London @ 52... that comes up a lot

...or down, if you happen to be a troll below the flight path of one of those flying things the Nazgûl use to go around.

Posted November 20, 2007 8:18 AM by Serge

Paula Lieberman @ 49... There have been some major blossomings of creativity on Making Light, instigated by over-the-top trolls and sockpuppets being taking to ridicule by various, or even significant numbers, of the contributors here....

Has that really ever worked? It seems that even making fun of a troll is a way of feeding it, and it usually doesn't go away until the Disemvoweller strikes. I think.

Speaking of Ridicule, my wife has put it on our NetFlix wish list.

Posted November 20, 2007 8:23 AM by Serge

lighthill #24: 'Where are the trolls of yesteryear?'

Anent that, whatever happened to Ted Kaldis?

Posted November 20, 2007 9:27 AM by Fragano Ledgister

Serge #54

In real life, there ARE trolls who've slunk away in embarrassment when received with quite different reactions than they were aiming for. In particular, would-be rabble rousers who get laughed at tend to get more and more upset and finally Go Away.

For that matter, I did something of a similar nature to whatever-his-name-was with his display of self-published books at the San Antonio Worldcon. His strident insistence on me to look at his book put me into micro-critical inspection mode.

"See," he said, "I have all these people praising my book with [page after page of them] in the front of the book. Other books don't have this."

"They're called 'quote whores,' I replied.

He deflated a bit, then rallied again, urging me onward to read his wonderful book.

I opened it to a random page and started doing structural analysis on his prose and content and characterization, tearing it all into shreds critically.

He backed off with the feeble exit line, "It's not for everyone."

Posted November 20, 2007 10:04 AM by Paula Liebeman

Paula Lieberman @ 56... True, that does work out that way in the real world. I telecommute. I have this co-worker who seldom lets a chance pass to undermine me in front of everybody, but for some reason he acts differently when I'm in San Francisco and not 1100 miles away.

Posted November 20, 2007 10:16 AM by Serge

I don't think the troll ridicule and attendant creativity is necessarily to discourage the trolls-- it's to make it fun for the rest of us.

Posted November 20, 2007 10:21 AM by Diatryma

re #45: The way that the "Good Hand/Bad Hand" subpolicy is being invoked encapsulates a fundamental defect in this. What it prohibits, at least of this minute, is maintaining a separate account "for the purpose of disruption or stirring up controversy." At least as far as the BADSITES war is concerned, it doesn't seem to me to apply to AL's contributions, which have been temperate and have not initiated the conflicts, no matter whether you think the initiators are those who keeping bringing up the issue or those who keep objecting to it when it is resurrected. The AL identity was penalized for backing the wrong horse, or maybe even just for participating in the discussion at all.

The whole "sockpuppet" idea on Wikipedia has gotten out of hand, seeing as how it is largely used to shut down people trying to evade blocking/banning. I have never seen a case of the classical phenomenon of someone appearing as multiple identities in a single discussion. There is a problem across the board in Wikipedia policy that any notion of the slightest subtlety expands through overgeneralization to fill invective space. "Sockpuppetry" dissolves into a synonym for multiple identities over both time and namespace; "troll" means "anyone I find disagreeable"; "No original research" is degraded to "no primary sources". Now as far as multiple identities are concerned, it seems obvious that the easiest approach is to take the reasonable ones at face value and to suppress those that aren't, and never mind who the real person is behind them. What has developed instead is a penal mindset bent on making sure that no one escapes any punishment meted out.

Posted November 20, 2007 11:07 AM by C. Wingate

what should the theme song be:

To troll the impossible troll!

or

I will Troll every forum!

I could go with either one.

Also, Remember all those ancient Geek plays where the protagonist announces they can no longer be trolled? It's called H.U.B.R.I.S!

Posted November 20, 2007 11:10 AM by bryan

re #56: You got lucky and hit someone who was less Asperger-ish than the persona you adopted.

(BTW, did you know you've lost an r?)

Posted November 20, 2007 11:17 AM by C. Wingate

Paula @56: In case you haven't come across it before... PENITENTIARY PACIFIC!.

Posted November 20, 2007 11:31 AM by Jules

C. Wingate # 61

I merely let my inner nitpicker out for a spin...

(My current career incarnation is software test engineering/quality assurance. I am a professional nitpicker! )

Posted November 20, 2007 11:37 AM by Paula Lieberman

Fragano (#55): Ah, Tire Iron Ted. That brings back some memories, indeed.

Posted November 20, 2007 12:03 PM by Christopher Davis

Jules @ 62: My first reaction was "doesn't this person know that Atlanta Nights has already been done?"

And then I realized it wasn't a parody. Ow.

Posted November 20, 2007 1:02 PM by Lexica

Christopher Davis #64: Indeed!

Posted November 20, 2007 1:03 PM by Fragano Ledgister

Paula Lieberman @ 63... My current career incarnation is software test engineering/quality assurance.

Oh, you're one of them. Me, I write the programs. Does that make a software engineer? Maybe a software mechanic.

Posted November 20, 2007 1:11 PM by Serge

C. Wingate @ 59:

Ah, I was thinking you were meaning the OTHER similar issue, PrivateMusings et al., not A L. Scratch everything I wrote about that one, then. I'm not as informed about that other case.

Sockpuppetry in the classical sense certainly does occur on Wikipedia, and quite frequently. I suspect that the reason you aren't seeing much mention of it is that when it is detected, there is no controversy inherent in stopping it. If you read Administrator's noticeboard/Incidents (I hate the abbreviations, btw ...) you're seeing the controversial cases, not the general run-of-the-mill ones.

I do agree that the word is being over-stretched. Serial identities are not the same as parallel identities, and 'sockpuppet' should apply only to the latter.

I do think too much attention is being given to banning *people*, rather than *behavior*. This is partly, I think, due to the stagnation of policy (and thus the difficulty of instituting policies on new ways of being a pain in the ass) - instead, we wait for someone to go too far and get banned, and then try and apply that to new creations (since it will take too long for them to in turn do something too far).

Some people do deserve to be banned as solidly as they can be; one particular individual who makes it a habit of very creepily stalking female users who attract his attention, for instance, or people like the Overstock.com nuts, who are paid attack dogs.

Posted November 20, 2007 1:24 PM by Matthew Brown

Note to C. Wingate @ 44.

There were recently some interesting proposed changes to the Wikipedia sockpuppetry guidelines. The initial proposal was that secondary accounts should only be allowed to edit articles, and not take part in any of the meta stuff like policy discussions, reporting trolls and vandals, replying to ArbCom cases against themselves etc. It was by SlimVirgin, who IIRC was more than a little involved in the whole attack sites mess.

Shortly afterwards, the person I mentioned who incorrectly banned someone on evidence she couldn't reveal (I think that was a sockpuppet case too) suggested it should be possible to ban accounts because they look like a sockpuppet, even if there's no clues as to whose sockpuppet they could be. New account and show too much knowledge about Wikipedia procedures? Banned forever, unless you can show exactly what account you got your knowledge under to the satisfaction of the admins. Same if you take part in controversial areas with a new account. This is not a strawman argument - it's what they'd actually ban people on the basis of.

Of course, if you create another account that's ban evasion using sockpuppets - so that account gets banned forever too. And, for those of you who aren't Wikipedians, suspected sockpuppet accounts are banned forever - otherwise, banning someone indefinitely is close to impossible and will certainly get a lot of scrutiny. Sockpuppet bans are so commonplace that no-one bothers looking into them.

Posted November 20, 2007 6:43 PM by makomk

Also, as evidence to my previous post, I present the fact that the person proposing the new rules immediately accuses the first person to object of being a sockpuppet on the basis that their first edit to Wikipedia was too good and they spend too much of their time on AN/I. This was withdrawn after some private communication.

Posted November 20, 2007 6:48 PM by makomk

makomk, what is disturbing to me is that the nameless person you are referring to is running for Arbitration Committee.

Posted November 20, 2007 7:54 PM by JESR

Serge@53: ...or down, if you happen to be a troll below the flight path of one of those flying things the Nazgûl use to go around.

I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that a fell beast is like a seagull in that arena. A gift from them in that manner should be considered good luck.

Probably because it means you now stink too much for them to bother eating you.

Posted November 20, 2007 8:38 PM by Greg London

JESR@71: what is disturbing to me is that the nameless person you are referring to is running for Arbitration Committee.

If they've demonstrated a skill with system gaming, then they've probably accumulated enough admin alliances to win the vote, too.

Posted November 20, 2007 8:41 PM by Greg London

Greg London @ 72... it means you now stink too much for them to bother eating you

"Man! You smell terrible."
"Why, thank you, Bob."

Posted November 20, 2007 8:44 PM by Serge

Greg, I fear you are correct.

None of this would matter if it weren't for the fact that Wikipedia has sufficient mass to distort space and time; I've heard it quoted on legal and environmental issues too often, lately, after watching the sausage machine at work, and would like sane and ethical people to be in positions of power there as in all significant institutions.

Posted November 20, 2007 8:52 PM by JESR

re 69: The "you know too much to be a newbie so you must be evil" reason is used a lot. So is the "you agree with [banned person] so you must really be them" poor excuse.

re 68: Actually, I don't think the stagnation of policy is the problem, but rather, exactly the opposite. The fact that any schmuck can walk up and change (albeit temporarily) the rules would seem to be an irresistible temptation. And the temptation isn't so much to game the system as it is to believe that problems can all be solved by changing the rules. That's obviously not true when people are not following the ones that are there already, and indeed what has happened over in the battle for "No Original Research" is that a nonsensical guideline about sources is being produced by the clueless.

Posted November 20, 2007 9:34 PM by C. Wingate

Yeah, it's the "no original research" rule that is going to prevent me from ever writing a historical article for Wikipedia about the SMOF-BBS. About the only sourced proof I have that it ever even existed was because it was mentioned in Bruce Sterling's "The Hacker Crackdown".

Posted November 20, 2007 11:34 PM by Earl Cooley III

#72 If they're like a seagull there might not be that much of a smell to it. Bird poop is high in uric acid (that's what makes it white) and uric acid is a natural disinfectant. That's why New World vultures poop on their legs, to disinfect them. As a result, the bacteria that causes the bad poop smell we would normally expect isn't present.

Trufax

Posted November 20, 2007 11:41 PM by platedlizard

plated lizard, so, you haven't ever been in a gull roosting area, then?

Posted November 21, 2007 12:03 AM by JESR

# 79 That's not so much the poop, as it is the, uh, stuff they bring back with them. Or maybe my idea of what stinks has been altered by being pooped on by more birds then I care the think about. (The worst? Geese. They rely on fermentation to digest their food, unlike many other birds, and have lots of bacteria in their poops. The best was lorikeets. Their's smells like fruit or flowers due to the high sugar content of their food.)

Posted November 21, 2007 12:21 AM by platedlizard

Oops! A slight correction.

"Or maybe my idea of what stinks has been altered by being pooped on by more birds then I care the think about."

Meant to say more animals then I care to think about. Especially if I forget to scoop my iguana's bedding on a daily basis.

I still geese are by far the worst IME. Although I'm told tiger/lion poop takes the cake.

Posted November 21, 2007 12:27 AM by platedlizard

"No Original Research" is on the one hand a sensible precaution and on the other a miserably worded euphemism. What it really means is "do not afflict us with your crackpot theory"; at least, that is why it was devised. It was then extended slightly to mean "just tell us the state of the art." But cranks, by their nature, are immune to the instructions these rules give. So for some reason this mutated into a theory about proper sources. Competent people ignore the whole thing and hope that some wikilawyer doesn't come along and try to enforce the wrongheaded guideline.

re 75: That's the rub. About the only stuff that's worth working on is material that is only a notch or so above trivia, because it's likely to remain undisturbed. And even then you can never tell. I have to stand over top of one article on railroading because there's this fellow who has his own pet theory and who every few months bends that article to fit his theory. A savvy person can tell from the tone of what he writes that his theory is bullocks, but someone else might not. Therefore when I finally give up defending the article, it's going to get trashed and stay trashed unless it is fortunate enough to attract a new defender.

Posted November 21, 2007 12:36 AM by C. Wingate

C. Wingate @ 82:

'No original research' did indeed start as a 'this isn't a place to publish your crackpot physics theories' policy.

However, although it can be extended too far, I do think it's correct to say "Wikipedia is not supposed to be a site of first publication". Encyclopedias aren't where new stuff is written down for the very first time. If you've researched the history of your town and know things that aren't in any of the printed histories, Wikipedia is not the place to correct it; you should publish it elsewhere.

To take that further, Wikipedia is not supposed to be a place where you correct things. A large portion of the people who don't do well there are those who have an issue to push, a Truth to tell, a cause to promote. Wikipedia should indeed cover the established wisdom, in most cases. This includes covering significant alternative theories and ideas if they have a following, of course.

And you're right - a big problem is the belief among some that if they try hard enough they can make an ironclad, logical set of rules which will utterly prevent the cranks from trying to insert stupid stuff. The fact that it's impossible doesn't seem to penetrate, and the fact that it throws a huge number of babies out with the bathwater is also rather disturbing to me and yet seems like a small price to them.

A proportion of the problems are the no-social-skills Aspie types for whom this really does work, though; they seem to be unable to comprehend anything that requires nuance, but they are capable of understanding a set of logical rules.

By the way, could you let me know which railroading article seems to always get screwed up by this person? I know enough about the subject to get it right, I hope, and another person with it on watch might help.

@ 76: User conduct policies are stagnant, though. It's hard to get any change to stick, because there's always going to be a core of users who want to continue getting away with what should be forbidden.

JESR @ 75:

I hope I'm at least somewhat sane and ethical; I'd say that the vast majority of the others on the en.wikipedia arbitration committee are too. Sure, there are disagreements, agendas, tempers, etc etc. but a lot of the problem Wikipedia has is that almost all the sausage-making is out in the open. The average nonprofit, for instance, has much more insanity on its board than Wikipedia does among those who run stuff, from what I've seen.

Posted November 21, 2007 2:11 AM by Matthew Brown

For me what it's come to is this: if the top Google search hit is to a Wikipedia article I click on the second hit.

Posted November 21, 2007 9:21 AM by James D. Macdonald

re 84: I don't think Wikipedia is quite that bad, but I don't expect to get more out of it that a rough notion about something I've never heard of before. Besides, the second link these days is usually something along the lines of "Find best prices for ....." The number one service Google could perform for us is to add a switch to distinguish between pages trying to sell us something and pages trying to tell us something.

Posted November 21, 2007 9:27 AM by C. Wingate

platedlizard @ 81... I'm told tiger/lion poop takes the cake.

My cat's coprolith can be rather odoriferous. As for taking the cake, we have to put his litter box out of reach of our dogs, who seem to think that his merde is candy.

Posted November 21, 2007 9:32 AM by Serge

Serge@86: who seem to think that his merde is candy.

Likes to smoke the "kitty cigars", eh?

;)

Posted November 21, 2007 9:52 AM by Greg London

Augghhh... there goes breakfast.

Posted November 21, 2007 9:55 AM by Earl Cooley III

Mathew@83: there's always going to be a core of users who want to continue getting away with what should be forbidden.

And that would include the arbiters, a good many of the administrators, and probably anyone who actually works for the foundation.

At least with a situation like Shrub, we can wait till he's out of the white house and hope it improves. The way the old timers at wikipedia operate, they've set themselves up as kings with a parliment of plebes whom they tolerate.

Posted November 21, 2007 9:56 AM by Greg London

Serge @ 86

I once spent two hours in the primate research building at the UC Davis Veterinary School, trying to repair the rat-eaten cables on a piece of instrumentation. The place was not well-maintained, and the smell of rat urine and feces mixed most vilely with that of the rhesus monkeys in the cage on the other side of the room, a mother and her infant, who, I think, had some sort of intestinal virus. To make it a multi-sensory experience, the mother had taken it into her head that I was a danger to her child, and spent the entire time screeching at me. Sometimes it's more about the surroundings and the size of the enclosing volume than the absolute level of the stink.

Oh, and I have to tell my favorite animal story from that job. The male tiger at the Sacramento zoo had developed a painful tooth ache, and was brought to the vet school for treatment. He was quite safely tucked away in a barred room, but was still conscious, in pain, and very vocal about it. The school had a small herd of 8 or 10 goat kids*. Hearing the tiger roar, they panicked and lit out for parts unknown. Since I happened to be at the site that day, I was pressed into helping round them up. I can state with authority that two humans cannot create a cordon with their own bodies that will allow the capture of even one terrified juvenile goat unless they have specialized equipment such as a net or a lasso. Waving your arms wildly at them does not help.

* I have no idea why they kept them, except possibly for the words of wisdom I once got from a graduate physiology student: researchers choose an animal species based on the use of the animal after the experiment's over. He used sheep, and was an accomplished tanner and he wife a spinner and knitter. Another student used pheasants, so she always had a supply of eggs.

Posted November 21, 2007 10:07 AM by Bruce Cohen (SpeakerToManagers)

Sorry about that, Earl. Kitty cigars, Greg? I've never heard them called that.

Posted November 21, 2007 10:21 AM by Serge

Bruce Cohen @ 90... researchers choose an animal species based on the use of the animal after the experiment's over. He used sheep

That reminds me of the Far Side cartoon that showed a little bonetted girl having dinner, with the caption "Mary had a little lamb, and some potatoes."

Posted November 21, 2007 10:23 AM by Serge

Matthew Brown @ 83:

One of the ironies of No Original Research being originally intended as 'this isn't a place to publish your crackpot physics theories', is that it is now used to protect crackpot physics theories from detailed debunking analysis.

Let us postulate that a crackpot theory has got its Wikipedia page by hook or by crook. I will concede that J. Random Reader may be better off hearing about this theory, but I will insist that J. Random Reader also be informed that "here's where this alternate theory parts ways with the science that built the modern world that you enjoy".

But no-one has published such analysis. In fact, such analysis is not publishable in the very same academic, peer reviewed, sources that Wikipedia would normally consider as the gold standard for physics references.

I think the crackpots snuck a big one past the gatekeepers here. (And, yes, I've got a specific case in mind, but I won't belabor the details.)

Posted November 21, 2007 10:33 AM by John Aspinall

re 89: I think this comes under the heading of "never attribute to malice..." Dan Tobias and I go through phases of referring to the MONGO/SlimVirgin/Jayjg/etc. crowd as "The Cabal", but only ironically. There's no need for them to conspire, and I doubt that they do. "Faction" more accurately describes how they function: a long period of working in parallel on similar issues, plus the natural tendency for abuse of power, have turned them into a like-minded group of people who instinctively scratch each other's backs as needed and who have gotten excessively defensive.

One thing about the whole mess that I find ironic is that Jombo's supposed admiration for Ayn Rand has somehow translated into an organization that works almost exactly opposite of the way that the "good" people work in her books. James "Galt" Wales would rule Walesipedia Inc. with an iron hand and no tolerance for idiots, and he would heave admins who tolerated/encouraged idiots. And frankly Wikipedia would be better for it if he did.

Posted November 21, 2007 10:36 AM by C. Wingate

Bruce Cohen (SpeakerToManagers) #90: For the rounding up of goats what's necessary is to chivvy them into a large enough enclosed space that they won't spook, but small enough that they can't run far, then close the gate. Then, 3-4 human beings (my father, my two brothers, and myself for example) can catch them and tie them up one by one. Or two humans can use netting to tangle them up one by one. And then tie them.

Once they are all tied, you then, at your leisure, slaughter and skin them. My father used to cure the hides and then use them as rugs.

Posted November 21, 2007 10:45 AM by Fragano Ledgister

C@94, holy crap, those guys are still there? It's good to be king, I suppose.

Earl@88, sorry.

Serge@91, yeah, we've got dogs, we've got cats, and we've got "humidors" lined with cat litter.

Posted November 21, 2007 10:52 AM by Greg London

Earl Cooley @ 77: Yeah, it's the "no original research" rule that is going to prevent me from ever writing a historical article for Wikipedia about the SMOF-BBS.

Yeah, you'll have to get it published somewhere else first instead.

Posted November 21, 2007 11:06 AM by Richard Brandt

Fragano Ledgister @ 95

Thanks for the suggestions; I'll bear them in mind next time I have to deal with spooked goats. It's nice to know that there isn't some easy way to deal with them that we could have used at the time; two of us without ropes or nets and no enclosed space to work with were just hopelessly outclassed. Humbling, that.

Posted November 21, 2007 11:15 AM by Bruce Cohen (SpeakerToManagers)

Fragano @ 95... For the rounding up of goats what's necessary is to chivvy them into a large enough enclosed space that they won't spook, but small enough that they can't run far, then close the gate. Then, 3-4 human beings

"You've really got my goat this morning."

Posted November 21, 2007 11:17 AM by Serge

Bruce Cohen (SpeakerToManagers) #98: They're nimbler than we are.

Posted November 21, 2007 12:51 PM by Fragano Ledgister

Serge #99: Oh??????

Posted November 21, 2007 12:53 PM by Fragano Ledgister

Matthew Brown @ 83, that line might convinve the young 'uns over at Wikipedia, but my baseline for sausage making is the Washington State Legislature, and even by that very high standard, there's some very bad meat going into policy discussion at Wikipedia.

Posted November 21, 2007 12:59 PM by JESR

Fragano @ 101... Just (Dare I say it?) kidding.

Posted November 21, 2007 1:02 PM by Serge

re Wikipedia, Has Jimbo in fact arranged the licensing such that others are not allowed to copy the Wikipedia entire and fix it up with a "clean" batch of users?

Because from the sound of it, "start over" is the only way you're going to fix that mess. Unless, of course, somebody finally manages to LART Jimbo.

Posted November 21, 2007 1:14 PM by David Harmon

C. Wingate, #85: The number one service Google could perform for us is to add a switch to distinguish between pages trying to sell us something and pages trying to tell us something.

Nicely put!

Serge, #92: Or "...with fava beans and a nice Chianti."

Richard, #97: That runs straight into the question of, "Where is he going to GET something like that published?" It's not of sufficient general interest that even a university press would take it, and I can readily imagine the Wikigamers' response to a reference to something published thru Lulu... and then, he'd still be up against "you can't reference your own materials" and "Wikipedia is not a commercial site." This is a no-win situation.

Posted November 21, 2007 1:25 PM by Lee

Lee @ 105... Serge, #92: Or "...with fava beans and a nice Chianti."

Next, Shari Lewis practices sewing on Lambchop.

Posted November 21, 2007 1:39 PM by Serge

David@104: re Wikipedia, Has Jimbo in fact arranged the licensing such that others are not allowed to copy the Wikipedia entire and fix it up with a "clean" batch of users?

I think its just a straight GNU-GPL license, which means you can fork anytime you want.

The question is whether you're willing to pay the server costs and whether you're willing to have a legal team to deal with the lawsuits from all the people complaining about their biographies.

If I ever hit the lottery, forking wikipedia would probably be one of my first projects.

And I'd use this method for handing out admin privileges.

Posted November 21, 2007 2:15 PM by Greg London

Bruce Cohen (SpeakerToManagers) #90, #98 & Fragano Ledgister #95

"what's necessary is to chivvy them into a large enough enclosed space that they won't spook, but small enough that they can't run far"

You've simplified this somewhat. You're pre-supposing an ability to herd the goats. Herding animals is something that cannot really be taught, only learned by experience. The experienced herder knows when to step forward to encourage the animals to move, when to step back in order to stop the animal spooking and running past, when raising an arm or wiggling your fingers will make all the (psycholigical) difference to whether or not the animal goes where you want it to.

Tip for novices: if you need to get past the animal to herd it back in the direction you've just come from, don't look at it while you're passing it. Preferably, physically turn your back on it - animals know whether or not the predator (you) is looking at them.

Posted November 21, 2007 2:23 PM by dcb

dcb and Fragano Ledgister, on herding ungulates: you wouldn't happen to be available next Friday, say about 10am PST, to help wean calves, would you?

How about the 15th of December?

Bring knee boots!

Posted November 21, 2007 2:42 PM by JESR

Serge back #91: We always called them "Doggie Almond Roca", since a bit of kitty litter sticks to the outside. And we did our darndest to keep the dog out of the litter box.

Posted November 21, 2007 2:45 PM by Tania

Tania... Almond Roca sounds like a fancy flavor of ice cream.

Posted November 21, 2007 2:49 PM by Serge

About JESR's offer... Calves-at Emptor!

Posted November 21, 2007 2:52 PM by Serge

JESR @ 109

I'd be happy to help - but I'm in London (UK).

Word of warning for the wise. Never ask a sheepdog to herd Soay sheep. Not unless you really hate the dog and want to give it a nervous breakdown (they don't herd - they scatter).

Posted November 21, 2007 3:43 PM by dcb

That should have been: "they don't flock, they scatter."

Posted November 21, 2007 3:51 PM by dcb

dcb, I've only known Suffolks, myself; the last one we had (as a bramble control measure) was instrumental in chasing a bull back into the field, one dark and stormy night.

Posted November 21, 2007 3:56 PM by JESR

Plated Lizard: I don't find goose to be so bad (we have four). Bats, prety pungeunt. Horse, kind of nice. Swine, really foul. Chickens, so-so. Fermented mouse crap, foul. Fermented Guinea Pig droppings, pleasant.

Worst I've ever had to be around... Sea lion.

Posted November 21, 2007 4:06 PM by Terry Karney

Serge #103: I know, otherwise I might have had to ram ewe.

Posted November 21, 2007 4:14 PM by Fragano Ledgister

JESR #109: I regret to say that I have a previously-scheduled appointment with a pile of essays. Besides, I'm not as spry as I was in the 1970s.

Posted November 21, 2007 4:20 PM by Fragano Ledgister

Fragano @ 118... I regret to say that I have a previously-scheduled appointment with a pile of essays.

Wouldn't you rather have an appointment with a pile of manure?

Posted November 21, 2007 4:24 PM by Serge

Terry Karney @ 116... Sea lions are worse than a pigsty? Holy you-know-what.

Posted November 21, 2007 4:25 PM by Serge

plated lizard

Penguin poop is much worse than goose poop. Particularly when there are lots (thousands) of penguins, in a confined space. 10 tonnes of digested fish per day - mmm!

Posted November 21, 2007 4:27 PM by dcb

Greg Longon @#107: True, but if that's so, all that's really needed is for somebody rich to get fed up with the mess, and decide to fix it.

Is anybody else noticing a certain parallel between the Wikipedia and goat-herding threads here? ;-)

Posted November 21, 2007 4:28 PM by David Harmon

David@122: if that's so, all that's really needed is for somebody rich to get fed up with the mess, and decide to fix it.

Being first gave wikipedia some advantages. Something about a singing dog. You don't focus on the fact that it sings so poorly, you're just amazed that it sings at all. Now that wikipedia has established it's singing ability, the next dog that sings won't fly. It will have to be better. And it will have to inherit all the GPL licenses, which means wikipedia can simply roll any of your modifications back into its version without violating a license, and without actually improving its rules for conflict resolution and whatnot.

So, not only will this new encyclopedia have to be better, it will have to be really better. Which, unfortunately, raises the bar to entry just a tad.

I have no idea how much storage or bandwidth wikipedia uses. Does anyone have this information somewhere? Does wikipedia post it? I'd be curious just to see how much it would cost to host wikipedia at some third party company.

Posted November 21, 2007 4:42 PM by Greg London

Serge: Yeah. It's a tough call, but the tipping point was concentration. It didn't take the localised amount of sea-lion crap to make the locale someplace one wanted to move along from.

The foulness of pigs came from them not being able to spread the depostion out/insufficient cleaning. The idea of 1/4 the concentration of sea-lion effluvia, and even with a fresh breeze, I'd be off that island in a New York Minute.

It was bad. Reeked of fermented fish and I don't know what all.

Posted November 21, 2007 4:45 PM by Terry Karney

Terry Karney @ 124... "The horror! The horror!"

Posted November 21, 2007 4:53 PM by Serge

Fragano -- Goats are more nimble and they can leap with astounding agility -- not to mention climb too. But you know that.

Goat skins are very pretty on floors and beds and walls, though their real function is to become drum heads.

Love, C.

Posted November 21, 2007 4:55 PM by Constance Ash

re 124: Given Wikipedia's current structure, there's no hope that it could take advantage of some similar project's text in the areas where Wikipedia has severe problems now. After all, the only way that Betterpedia's material could get into Wikipedia, given the latter's operating methods, is for someone to carry it from one to the other. Once carried it would be subjected to all the same destructive forces that already ruin Wikipedia's material. After all, most bad Wikipedia articles do not want for decent source material; they are deliberately broken, out of ignorance, incompetence, or malice.

Posted November 21, 2007 4:58 PM by C. Wingate