Wikipedia:Dealing with trolls

Because of problems with this poll (no end-date sent and no definition of what constitutes trolling) this poll is hopelessly riddled with problems. A new poll has been started at . Please vote there. →Raul654 19:01, Jul 10, 2004 (UTC)

After a four-month deadlock in the arbitration committee, it seems appropriate that this question should be decided by the user community at large.

Trying to formulate a precise definition of "troll" is (a) probably impossible, and (b) counterproductive. It is precisely this type of legalism that trolls thrive on. The more careful and more detailed a definition is, the more loopholes there are for trolls to exploit. For a troll, our attempt to define "trolling" is the Holy Grail: from there on, the possibilities for disruption are virtually unlimited.

No. The answer is to trust our sysops to make calm, common-sense judgements.

If we can't trust a sysop to do this, then that person shouldn't be a sysop in the first place.

Everyone makes mistakes, and we need to allow our sysops a certain amount of slack, but in the end, if a sysop consistently goes too far, then they are not performing their duties properly and should go back to being a regular editor. A "three strikes" rule might be an appropriate starting point. After three significant blunders (defined, perhaps, as "bannings that were overturned by community consensus, and regarded as non-borderline matters") a sysop becomes an ordinary editor again, without admin powers. After a reasonable period (say three months) that former sysop may, if he or she desires, be nominated and approved for adminship in the normal way.

A problem with this approach is that it is one-sided. It "punishes" sysops who make one sort of mistake (going too far) but does not sanction sysops who go too far in the other direction (i.e., those who ignore or even support anti-social behaviour such as trolling). I am not sure what steps we can take to overcome this, bar simply being aware of it and reminding ourselves of it from time to time.

Tannin 01:51, 4 Jul 2004 (UTC)

That sounds reasonable to me, Hephaestos. How about we define a "strike" as something like: "a blocking or unblocking action contrary to community consensus"? Nice and simple, seems to cover all the possibilities. Tannin

I do not like the caveat which suggests that a person is not trolling simply because they also make "productive contributions". Anyone can go through making typo fixes, adding categories etc. and find a loophole that way. On the other hand, the suggestion that sysops be required to explicitly explain/give evidence for their blocks/bans is excellent. - Hephaestos| 14:33, 3 Jul 2004 (UTC)

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