From: dsmither@alfred.carleton.ca (Diane Smithers)
Subject: Re: twirps and calm (was logic confounding people unclear on the concept)
Organization: Carleton University
Date: Sun, 24 Jan 1993 22:28:10 GMT

In <6PHsXB3w165w@noncomf.tdkcs.waterloo.on.ca> pmarlowe@noncomf.tdkcs.waterloo.on.ca (philip marlowe) writes:

(my angry post to paleblue whatever deleted)

> Y'know, there ARE decaffinated brands which taste every bit as good as 
>the real thing.

Thanks for the tip.

> I agree with your about her/his annoying messages, and also have some 
>doubts as to the true identity of this person, but c'mon...aren't you 
>REALLY upset because someone like this upsets your personal apple cart in
>a very unpleasant way? I mean, the most valuable currency in alt.angst is 
>honesty. People come here to cry on someone's shoulder, and many of the 
>rest of us (myself included) take these stories at face value and feel 
>for them?

Well, listen Phil, I am not going to try to deny my particular point
of entry into this newsgroup - if this were a group full of
hermes-types, or even had enough of them to throw the balance into
uncertainty about whether this is alt.theatrical posturing or
alt.angst, I wouldn't bother; there are just so many other places I
can find that kind of thing.  It's fine if that's what one wants and
expects (and sometimes I enjoy it), but from what I can see it doesn't
seem to be the raison d'etre for this group.  And I am thankful for
that.  I haven't yet had to cry on anyone's shoulder here, but I think
that if I did have a problem that I felt people here could help me
with, I would post it here, rather than to, say alt.peeves or
alt.fuckyou.  


> Well...the nagging doubt whenever I read anything here is "What if 
>he/she's a liar, and is playing me for a fool?". Terribly irritating if 
>one's been feeling sorry for a practical joker now, isn't it?

And shouldn't it be? In my *life* I have never met a person that enjoys
being taken for a ride. 

> That's where your...ah...victim comes in. If ONE person can try to play 
>us, all certainties go out the window, and alt.angst becomes a colder 
>place. Thing is, to blame all of this complex reaction on one annoying 
>user really isn't fair, since you're attributing structural faults of 
>this newsgroup to a buffoon who inadvertently exploits them.

I agree with you in some respects, but I also think that you are
collapsing some things together.  The medium (which is written rather
than spoken)  makes it particularly easy for people to do a hermes,
because it can be difficult to get a sense of people.  However, I
think that there is a difference between talking of "structural
faults" and blaming hermes for this complex reaction in the sense you
describe:  "A" lies; reaction in group member due to Honesty Code
infraction - A is tried and convicted of Honesty Code offense; A is
implicitly blamed, through complicated discursive constructions, for
eliminating all certainty and wrecking the group. 

I still reserve the right to evaluate a hermes and feel that it is
not a positive and productive addition to the group and respond to
her with my opinions about that. I mean, of course it was happening
within a group that I have certain ideas about what I want to get from
it, but I think that what you really didn't like about my postings was
how strong my reaction was to her, and that's fine, but it's different
from what you are saying.     

Maybe I shouldn't have become as angry at the little twirp but I
haven't been here that long and haven't experienced many "random
net idiots". I guess I disagree with the extent to which you
characterize her behavior as "inadvertent" - perhaps some of the
effects are built into the group and the medium, but she was, in my
understanding of things (complete with a structural context within
which this is all happening) an agent.

> Just ignore her/him. If you keep going the way you have been, the flames 
>will continue, and may just burn us all up along with the two of you.

Actually, I only posted two angry posts and had said as much that I
wasn't going to bother posting any more to her.  And if I overreacted,
I think it's mainly because I hadn't dealt with a moron like that
before and was not able to be The Voice of Rationality, Reason, and Calm
which I presume would have received higher marks.  In the future, I
will probably try to be more careful, and if mine were the
only angry posts this group ever saw, I might accept your reprimand.
I find it pretty hard to stay calm when people are doing things I
really take exception to.

But on the melodrama scale, I am pretty darn skeptical that
anything I said  was so inflammatory and divisive that it will "burn
us all up along with the two(?) of you".   

Diane


dsmither@ccs.carleton.ca