[PLUG-TALK] a superset of censorship

[Russell Senior]

>>>>> "glen" == glen e p ropella <gepr at tempusdictum.com> writes:

glen> I've often been accused of being a troll.  Perhaps I am a troll.
glen> I don't know.

If so, a good kind.

glen> I do, however, know that ignoring (apparent) trolls is not the
glen> way to treat them.  [...]

I recently watched this, a talk by one of the intellectual and
humanitarian rock stars of the Portland metropolitan area, Ward
Cunningham:

  http://cyborgcamp.blip.tv/file/1556645/

The whole thing is worth watching, but skip to about 46:30 for a bit
about trolling on wikis.  

``The way I think about it is [...] writing for a wiki [...] you have
  either of two points of view.  One is you have an idea or an insight
  and you are giving that idea to the community.  It's a gift.  That's
  the gifting aspect.  And writing in a way that's clear and that
  people can use it and whatever and that's what you have to do to do
  the gift.  But the other thing people do is sometimes people write
  not because they want to gift but they want to take.  And on [my
  wiki] I didn't want anything to take, so I made it completely free,
  there's no point in crashing it, it's so easy to crash, but I didn't
  think of attention.  What people do is they'll sometimes write
  specifically to attract attention, and that is a taking instead of a
  giving.  There is attention all over my wiki and some people are
  taking it.  And if you start thinking in those terms you can read
  what people are saying and it's very easy as a human to say "is this
  guy giving or is this guy taking?"  You just read what he says.
  "Uh!  This guy's a taker."  [...]  Trolling is the quintessential
  example of a taker.  He doesn't give you anything, just demands your
  attention by saying something crazy.''

I'd say that Glen's brand of trolling is still giving.  Anything that
induces understanding, advancing, clarifying thought can't be taking.


-- 
Russell Senior, Secretary
russell at personaltelco.net