> -----Original Message-----
> From: Richard Baker [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> Sent: Monday, June 03, 2002 10:28 AM
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: Re: This is a troll.
>
>
> Jeffrey said:
>
> > I do. I think the simplest explanation for such behavior
> isn't mental
> > illness, but just plain wonky human nature.
>
> I don't see what he might want to achieve in that case though.
>
> - The obvious motive might be trying to make lots of people
> angry, in which case he seems rather inept compared to such
> masters as "Hotblack DeSoto", who infested the Culture and
> lead me to lose my cool to such an extent that I actually
> flamed someone ("You have demonstrated yourself to be rude,
> stupid, racist, incoherent in thought, ineloquent in speech,
> devoid of even the slightest traces of virtue or even wit...
> you in fact earned... first my indifference, then my pity and
> now finally my utter, absolute contempt"). In constrast, I
> haven't even come close to saying such things to Mark - he
> seems instead to induce mild puzzlement when I actually read
> his messages, which is very infrequently now. If Mark were
> intending to troll, I think he'd appear more engaged with the
> regular threads here and would be a little more insulting
> towards others.
I don't think Mark is trolling in a traditional sense of "creating havoc
and dissention through intentional irritation" (if you'll permit me to
define terms.) Heck, if he wanted to do that he could post something
about, well, the Recent Unpleasentness In The Holy Land.
> - Perhaps, as has been suggested previously, he's trying to
> find the limits of our tolerance for erratic behaviour. I
> think if this were the case he would've said so by now as it
> seems that attitudes towards him have more or less stabilised.
Perhaps. However, I have noticed that when something is mentioned as an
irritant, he begins to use the irritant until asked to stop.
> - A third possibility is that he's attempting to provide a
> strange and amusing voice from beyond the usual frame of
> reference of Brin-L, but I don't find the things he says
> particularly strange or amusing (when compared, for example,
> to Mariama Xi, whose posts to the Culture I always enjoy
> wri^H^H^Hreading). I also doubt this is the case because he
> is posting such an avalanche of email, which seems rather
> extreme if the intentions are whimsical.
..but altogether random and meaningless. I don't deny that there's
obviously some effort going into these dhiarretic postings, but terribly
little thought.
> Subtracting these options from our list of motives, I think
> the most likely remaining ones are that he is either mentally
> ill or else pretending to be so (as happens with disturbing
> regularity on the Net, it seems).
I think there are 2 other options:
- trying to get attention by any means possible (aka Whining Child
Syndrome)
- self-important dada experiment (while lacking any grounding whatsoever
in art)
> Anyway, I propose using the
> direct approach: Mark, why have you been posting in the way
> you have over the last month or so?
Why don't you call him? He's posted his number numerous times ^_^
-j-
