On 2013-03-29, Ethan Furman <et...@stoneleaf.us> wrote: > On 03/29/2013 07:52 AM, Grant Edwards wrote: >> On 2013-03-28, Ethan Furman <et...@stoneleaf.us> wrote: >> >>> I cannot speak for the borg mind, but for myself a troll is anyone >>> who continually posts rants (such as RR & XL) or who continuously >>> hijacks threads to talk about their pet peeve (such as jmf). >> >> Assuming jmf actually does care deeply and genuinely about Unicode >> implementations, and his postings reflect his actual >> position/opinion, then he's not a troll. Traditionally, a troll is >> someone who posts statements purely to provoke a response -- they >> don't really care about the topic and often don't believe what >> they're posting. > > Even if he does care deeply and genuinely he still hijacks threads, > still refuses the challenges to try X or Y and report back, and > (ISTM) still refuses to learn. > > If that's not trollish behavior, what is it?
He might indeed be trolling. But what defines a troll is motive/intent, not behavior. Those behaviors are all common in non-troll net.kooks. Maybe I'm being a bit too "old-school Usenet", but being rude, ignorant (even stubbornly so), wrong, or irrational doesn't make you a troll. What makes you a troll is intent. If you don't actually care about the topic but are posting because you enjoy poking people with a stick to watch them jump and howl, then you're a troll. > FWIW I don't think he does care deeply and genuinely (at least not > genuinely) or he would do more than whine about micro benchmarks and > make sweeping statements like "nobody here understands unicode" > (paraphrased). Perhaps he doesn't care about Unicode or Python performance. If so he's putting on a pretty good act -- if he's a troll, he's a good one and he's running a long game. Personally, I don't think he's a troll. I think he's obsessed with what he percieves as an issue with Python's string implementation. IOW, if he's a troll, he's got me fooled. -- Grant Edwards grant.b.edwards Yow! It's a hole all the at way to downtown Burbank! gmail.com -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list