Term:taken over by trolls
From eg
To say something has been taken over by trolls can mean one of three distinct things:
- A person driven off by trolls objects to this and claims that s/he lost a power struggle more general than him or herself, e.g. Larry Sangers' claims about Wikipedia
- A troll-sysop struggle is continuing and someone wishes policies to be less troll-friendly either because their faction wants to consolidate power, or is in danger of losing power
- A troll-sysop struggle has been actually resolved and trolls have taken over from those who began with infrastructure owners trust, establishing a democratic domain
These are different enough that the more exact terms should be used wherever possible.
The DuneCat and all your base are belong to us are widely regarded as symbols indicating such troll takeovers.
Also, while it is quite operational to say trolls have taken over, it's much more problematic to speculate who the entity was taken over "term:by" or imply that they remain in charge. While any person driven off by trolls is within their rights to accuse troll-friendly policy as being at fault, and the term "trolls" is ambiguous enough to accomodate a wide range of intepretations that never ask who wrote what, to assert that something is or was taken over by trolls implies that those who sparked the revolution or supported it, retain some ongoing power. This is almost never true, accordingly, this phrase ought to be regarded as propaganda.
