It worked! It worked! But only after I spent several minutes
carefully studying "The Art of Trolling"
http://www.altairiv.demon.co.uk/troll/trollfaq.html
with lots of tips written by someone who sounds like Elwood -- for example:
> You do not have to make the subject clear. Trolls are aimed at two
> audiences, the respondees and the lurkers. The best trolls reveal their
> true subject only to the lurkers. In every sense those who reply to your
> troll are your tools. So choose a theme for your troll and stick to it.
>
> Remember that you have two audiences. The people who are going to get
> the maximum enjoyment out of your post are other trollers. You need to
> keep in contact with them through both your troll itself and the way you
> direct its effect. It is trollers that you are trying to entertain so be
> creative - trollers don't just want a laugh from you they want to see
> good trolls so that they can also learn how to improve their own in the
> never ending search for the perfect troll.
Yes, it worked, I trolled Tim into yet-again posting his "thin skin"
flame. Of all the flames on FoRK, I love this one in particular because
it's so one-sided: when Tim does it, it's justified ranting, but when
anyone else does it, we're Apple-coring bullies. Too bad there's no
such thing as a virtual beer by which we can shed this thin skin and get
on to some decent tag team wrestling.
So how should I respond? I could fight fire with fire and flame him
right back. "Dear Blank, in the face of a disembodied and disjointed
narrative spool of incoherence such as this, it's difficult to know why
you disturbed such a wonderful silence with your random flinging of
subhuman excrement at the fan, thereby breaking the fantastic streak of
my noble compatriots who steadily stream elegant prose through the FoRK
gateway. Listen, buddy: we are not trying to solve a problem. We are
not trying to resolve a situation. We are merely trying to get this
damnable corpse buried before the plague rats get a whiff of the
viscera. You are standing on the shovel; otherwise, you are of slight
consequence. Kindly move your foot..."
But no, I shouldn't do that, for according to
http://www.spark.org/flame/flame.html
there are two basic truths to flaming, life, etc:
1) Surviving and winning are two radically different concepts.
2) Even when spanked, some folks always come back for more.
and I really don't feel like winning, nor do I feel like incurring any
more spankage right now. So let's just end it, like a leotard-cladden
ballerina Nazi flourishing her final pirouettes in the Sugar Plum scene
of the Nutcracker Suite.
----
adam@cs.caltech.edu
.sig penalty box -- generating fifty lines of sewage...
You're currently logged onto a computer networking system that contains
the sum total of human knowledge, achievement, and aspiration. This is
the place where all the adverts tell you that man is indeed equal. Yet
here you find that in the midst of all this nirvana, some asshole
decides to get rude. Why? Simple...Opinions. The whole thing can be
summed up: "Opinions are like assholes...everyone's got one, and they
all stink." Obviously, folks are going to disagree with how you view
life. What you might not have known is, some folks take a peculiar
delight in being belligerent or overbearing about it.
Your first reaction to the flame, the thoughtless word, or even the
opinion you disagree with, is probably going to fall in one of two
groups: About half of you will get the irrepressible urge to insult the
living crap out of the offender. If they don't agree with your
strictures, fuck 'em, they're worthless piles of dog piss who shouldn't
be drawing oxygen in the first place. Others of you will get flustered,
reading in utter amazement at being treated as less than a peer in the
company of man.
The Internet is exactly like life...In New York City's "Hell's Kitchen"
district.
There are divisions, factions, and contentions...and unlike the drippy
little "The web is equality" commercials, not a damned thing you find
on-line is equal or fair. The only twist is that muscle or political
power no longer factors in...it is intelligence, the ability to adapt
quickly, and common sense that will determine who lives and dies
on-line. You say the 'net is a peer network of human kind? You naive
fool...the 'net has more than its share of losers, swindlers, perverts,
politicians, salesmen, retards, and more cops than you can shake a donut
at.
Why? Because more money flows through commercial (especially porn)
sites than the governments of most third-world countries...any crook or
salesman with the proficiency can make a killing in various scams,
sales, and swindles. Crackers and phreaks have nothing better to do than
to salve their fragile teenaged egoes by wrecking your hard drive. The
FBI most likely has more agents online asking for kiddie porn than there
are actual pedophiles masturbating to it, and everyone wants to see if
you want to make $50,000 per month.
In the midst of this maelstrom, as always, are millions of Cattl- errm,
People, who log on each day to see what Grandma/Dad/etc has to say in
their e-mail box...and then go tinker with their 401k and stock options
online...
If you're going to flame someone, please be original about it. Boring,
repetitious, and time-worn insults are wasteful at best, boring at
worst...in either case they're not very entertaining to the rest of us,
and it's our laughter that'll humiliate more than your prose, truth be
known. Think of it as playing to an audience. You and your opponent are
on a stage where neither of you can see the theater, but you can be sure
that folks always watching...you just don't know how many.
Originality is an impossible thing to preach directly, since it is akin
to describing the concept of sex to a group of teenagers: They either
have done it and already know what you're talking about, or they haven't
and will insist they have anyway just to save face. Therefore, let me
describe for you a handy way to tell if you're doing good, or if you
suck at it... If folks send you fan mail praising your writings, you're
doing good. If your articles only get cursory "yawn"-type replies,
you're doing badly. If a flame veteran engages you with a bit of
respect, you're doing great. If you're ignored, you're sucking wind.
Get the idea? Good.
-- http://www.spark.org/flame/howto.html