Saturday, July 25, 2009

Great figures of history: Admin or troll?

Skype voice chat can be wonderful.

"If there had been a Wikipedia in Thomas Paine's day, would he have been an administrator or a troll?"

That's a typical why-is-the-sky-blue question the people at WikiVoices kick around. During the more routine parts of image restoration this keeps my brain cells from sliding down my ear and swimming to Mexico.

After a discussion we all agreed that Paine would be a troll.

Which opens up other possibilities. What about other figures from history? You decide; please state your reasons.

1. Socrates
Admin traits: Major philosopher. Got other people to discuss highfalutin' stuff. Distracted them from doing anything useful.
Troll traits: Didn't actually write anything. After conviction, lectured the people who had judged him about how he should be rewarded instead of punished. Distracted people from doing anything useful.

2. Julius Caesar
Admin traits: Reformed society and government, declared "dictator in perpetuity".
Troll traits: Invaded Gaul, started a civil war in Rome, chased his enemies for four years rather than accept no for an answer.

3. Dante Alighieri
Admin traits: Good writer.
Troll traits: Put everyone who disagreed with him in hell, including popes.

4. Harriet Tubman
Admin traits: Leadership, good organizational skills.
Troll traits: Illiterate. Kept sneaking back no matter what people who didn't like her tried to do.

5. Linus Pauling
Admin traits: Two Nobel prizes.
Troll traits: Pushed a fringe theory about vitamins.

2 comments:

Dastardly Revisionist said...

If Socrates posted anything on wiki boards, the 5 to 10% of the time he didn't get ignored he'd get something like "trdr".

Izno said...

I tend to think Socrates would be troll everyone would tolerate, until he trolled the wrong newbie, and everyone would say to ban him.

Oh wait...