Even Sven, your turn in the barrel!

[twickster]

Zoe – I’m not going to read this whole thread, because, frankly, I find prr’s anti-religious shtick tedious in the extreme. I note, however, that you’re going after him again on your perception that he has presented himself under false pretenses as far as his professional credentials are concerned.

Let me, again, vouch for him as someone I’m friends with IRL. He is, indeed, a full professor in an English department in a university that you’ve heard of. He does, indeed, hold an administrative position in that department. He does, indeed, have more than one advanced degree in English literature, writing, and associated disciplines.

It’s time for you to accept that your dislike of him – which, frankly, I understand, given the full-tilt-asshole persona he has cultivated here – has led you to assume he’s lying about his credentials because you would like him to be lying.

You are wrong, though. He is what he says he is.

Please STFU about it.

Thank you.

[Zoe]

PRR: I wonder if it is a bannable offense to charge someone with being a troll despite specific evidence to the contrary? I may find out.

That has to be one of the funniest and most ironic posts of yours yet. I hope that you do find out soon. Of course, you can always read the rules. It would be interesting to see your “specific evidence to the contrary” that you are not a troll.

By the way, the sentence “I wonder if it is a bannable offense to charge someone with being a troll despite specific evidence to the contrary” is declarative, not interrogative. The question mark is inappropriate. (Reconsider the slander accusation.) <snort>

I made seven specific accusations all based on things that you posted here at SDMB. I’ve provided most of them before when asked for a cite. Everyone grew tired of my picking your language skills – or lack of them – apart.

I think the only one that I haven’t provided a cite for previously was that no university in the Northeast has an English department with 60 or more professors.

Everything that I provided as a cite was from your own posts – not from anything posted by someone else.

If I asked any moderators or administrators to do any research on your background, I hereby release them from any obligation to remain silent about it.

I do suspect that you have many socks, but I don’t think that I have reported them as such. My memory is not what it should be though and it is possible that I have had questions about some. If I asked any moderators or administrators to do any research on the possibility of someone being your sock, I release them from any obligation to keep that confidential. I’m kind of curious myself.

And why do you care so much what I say or whether I’m banned? When you called me the foulest of names repeatedly, I didn’t return the namecalling in kind. Yet you are offended by being called a “jerk” and butter wouldn’t melt in your mouth.

I was going to tell you that when you are not overly excited, your writing has improved in the last year or two. You’ve cut back some on the sentences that go on forever and your thinking is clearer. There is still room for improvement. As I said, I was going to tell you these things, but I don’t want to reward you for being in a snit.

[twickster]

Zoe – let it go, because this is really, really sad.

[tomndebb]

@Zoe

If I asked any moderators or administrators to do any research on your background, I hereby release them from any obligation to remain silent about it.
. . .
If I asked any moderators or administrators to do any research on the possibility of someone being your sock, I release them from any obligation to keep that confidential. I’m kind of curious myself.

I am afraid that you do not have the authority to tell the staff to “release” information about another poster. I am not sure where you think you were going with this, but for your own reputation and mental health, I think you would be better off dropping this entire line of inquiry.

For the record, I have never seen any indication that any other poster is a sock of prr. If I or any staff member had found such information, we would have moved to ban the sock and prr–just as we would for any poster using a sock puppet.
Further, I have seen, in private correspondences, so there is no point in asking about the evidence, information indicating that prr is who he claims to be.

For goodness sake, leave it alone.

[Rubystreak]

@Zoe

Ruby, you may want me to shut up, but I’m not the one who introduced this topic into PRR’s thread. He did that himself several days ago. (See Post 49.) He is such a troll.

You are like Captain Ahab here, I hope you realize that. Whether you trust me or not, I am telling the truth. This is not a matter of opinion, but one of fact. PRR could just give you his name, and it would be cleared up in a second, but I don’t blame him for not doing that. I wouldn’t want you poking around in my personal life either. But I have a feeling, even if you had proof, you’d still deny it. You know what they call people who deny reality, right?

Even you and PRR don’t really have access to my feelings about you – only some of my thoughts.

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out what your feelings are. And frankly, I don’t care. You’re wrong here. If you wish to persist, you are only making yourself look foolish, and more than a little crazy. Go right ahead. Doesn’t change what the reality is one bit.

ETA: I didn’t see tomndebb’s post before I posted mine, but if you don’t take his word for it, you won’t take anyone’s.

[Sarahfeena]

Thank you for your post, tomndebb. I can’t imagine what nefarious purpose Zoe thinks that twickster, Rubystreak, and I would have in mind that would cause us to lie for prr, but I can assure everyone that I have no agenda other than to defend what I know to be the truth. However, if Zoe won’t believe me for whatever reason, perhaps she will believe you.

[Zoe]

Tom, you always seem to project the worst possible meanings onto my posts. Please reread and reconsider. In the “explanations” after each comment, I have added a couple of words so that you will understand that I was absolutely not inquiring about information on any other poster.

My statement #1:

Zoe: If I asked any moderators or administrators to do any research on your background, I hereby release them from any obligation to remain silent about it.

Further explanation for Tom: If I have asked any moderators or administrators to do any research on your (PRR’s) background, I hereby release them from any obligation to remain silent about my having asked.

My statement #2:

Zoe: If I asked any moderators or administrators to do any research on the possibility of someone being your {PRR’s} sock, I release them from any obligation to keep that confidential. I’m kind of curious myself.

If I have asked any moderators or administrators to do any research on the possibility of someone being PRR’s sock, I release them from any obligation to remain quiet about my having suggested the possibility. I am kind of curious if I have ever submitted the name of a possible sock. As I said in my post, I am very forgetful and may have done this and just forgotten.

I certainly was not asking for any personal information about anyone. I was giving moderators permission to reveal specific information about me to PRR and others in this thread. He has mentioned recently that people have turned him in for having a sock and he told why they suspected him. It had something to do with the way he uses dashes or some other punctuation mark.

I did find it interesting that he had knowledge that one or more people had turned him in suspecting a sock and why they had suspected someone. I wonder why he was privy to this information. I’m going to assume that he was either guessing or he set it up himself deliberately. It would take more than punctuation habits for me to suggest a sock, I think.

At any rate, Tom, I hope that as you reread what I said originally, you can see that I was not requesting any information about anyone.

Why are you choosing to make comments about my mental health? I am the one who has not told people to shut up. I am the one who has not had trouble with reading comprehension. I am the one who has not resorted to name-calling. Do you feel that you are free to discuss this issue at any time? Are you in any way qualified to know what is good for my mental health and what is not? Is my speaking up appropriate or inappropriate?

Although as a moderator, you have the power to tell me what I can do and what I cannot, don’t confuse that with knowing what is best for me. I am old enough to be your mother. I have grandchildren that are adults.

If nothing else, get this straight: I have never asked you for privileged information about PRR or any other poster. I have never claimed to have the authority to tell the staff to release information about other posters.

And I really don’t think my sentences were that hard to understand.

As for the “evidence” you’ve seen, I’ll trust my own eyes.

[tomndebb]

@Zoe

Why are you choosing to make comments about my mental health?

Because your fixation with “proving” that prr is not an instructor at a college has gone on for far too many months and it has begun to look like it is something between a compulsion and stalking.

::: shrug :::

It was only a suggestion, not an official staff pronouncement.

[Rubystreak]

@Rubystreak

ETA: I didn’t see tomndebb’s post before I posted mine, but if you don’t take his word for it, you won’t take anyone’s.

I called it, didn’t I?

@Zoe

As for the “evidence” you’ve seen, I’ll trust my own eyes.

@Herman Melville

Ahab did not fall down and worship it like them; but deliriously transferring its idea to the abhorred white whale, he pitted himself, all mutilated, against it. All that most maddens and torments; all that stirs up the lees of things; all truth with malice in it; all that cracks the sinews and cakes the brain; all the subtle demonisms of life and thought; all evil, to crazy Ahab, were visibly personified, and made practically assailable in Moby Dick. He piled upon the whale’s white hump the sum of all the general rage and hate felt by his whole race from Adam down; and then, as if his chest had been a mortar, he burst his hot heart’s shell upon it.

[Fenris]

@burundi

Actually, at most unviersities I’m familiar with (both state and private), most staff, particularly clerical and professional staff, are salaried employees. Your university may be the exception rather than the rule in terms of how they pay staff.

This is not my experience, with the exception of the Administrative Assistant (in the '50s, this would have been the “head secretary”) for each department. Most of the rest of the staff is on hourly at the University I’m working with.

(Frankly, I’m also not sure I’d classify a newly-hired professor as “an important person,” but I’ll admit that also be my own bias. Again, in my experience, you’re ten times better off annoying a new prof than a long-time department secretary who knows exactly how things run and where all the bodies are buried.)

Heh–this, however, needs to be quoted for truth.

[Shodan]

Zoe - yes, he’s a troll. Quit feeding him.

[pseudotriton_ruber_ruber]

Shodan–I think she’s using a wrong different definition of “troll” than you’re using. Her mistaken definition, I think, is “someone who makes claims about himself that contradict each other or are contradicted by objectively verifiable facts” while you’re using the incorrect definition of “someone who pisses me off most of the time, but whom I can’t seem to bully effectively.” Her definition is more accurate than yours–it’s just wrong because she’s not making any claims about me that both accurate and true. The two definitions of “troll” have very little to do with each other. Both of you are welcome to ignore me rather than threadshit with your repeated idiotic claims of my trolling, however. You do realize how imbecilic it is for you to instruct her to stop feeding me by posting in this thread yourself, and thus eliciting this response? If I were a troll, IOW, you just fed me, moron, and if I’m not, then your last post contains no meaningful content.

[What_Exit]

@Shodan

Zoe - yes, he’s a troll. Quit feeding him.

**Shodan **he writes posts that often pissed off many members of the board. He then has the nerve to stand by his beliefs. If we substituted conservative Republican posts with anti-religious posts, I would be describing you instead.

Now I honestly don’t think either of you are trolls. Neither one of you represent my point of view most of the time but I honor your right to your point of view. Hell **Zoe **is usually the one that comes off looking crazy in the pit. She has a long history of crazy behavior and (near) stalking and then reminds us that she really does have mental problems when she gets called for it.

How many times have you been called a troll by those that disagree with you? Are they correct? So why think **PRR **is a troll? How is he different that you?
BTW: One small correction, while I do know that pseudotriton ruber ruber works for a University, I have no sure knowledge of his position. Though I do believe him. **Rubystreak **may have implied I know more than I do.

I swear **PRR **posts was not their until I previewed.

[Fenris]

Shodan–you may not like PRR but Zoe’s claim that he’s a troll is based on the fact that he doesn’t write like George Bernhard Shaw armed with Strunk and White in every informal post–she’s gone on and on about how NO teacher would EVER write like PRR does.

Personally, I’m not sure what she’s blithering on about–his writing’s fine for an informal message board–he’s not using text-speak, his posts don’t have glaring, repeated errors. Posts here aren’t a doctoral thesis.

You can’t deduce someone’s job from their grammar and spelling in private or informal correspondence.

Zoe, Girl Detective is just an embarrassment. She’s neither Sherlock Holmes (“I say, Watson–this man dropped an “H” at the beginning of the word “Hurry”–clearly, he’s NOT a university professor as he claimed, NO professor would ever do that! He’s clearly a left-handed bricklayer from Stropfordshire who walks with a limp in his…left foot.”) or Henry Higgins as she pretends to be.

Someone once was stalking Lib (and there was the guy who stalked Poly), both of whom got warned and/or banned. I’d love to see Zoe, GIRL DETECTIVE given the same treatment for her repeated (and VERY creepy) stalking of PRR–did you catch where she said she’s researching his real life activities? (“I haven’t yet located a university that has as large an English Department as he claimed to be the chairman of.”–she’s actually checking around trying to find him in real life?! This admission should be grounds for an insta-ban. I hope PRR has let the mods know about this.)

[Cervaise]

@What_Exit

How many times have you been called a troll by those that disagree with you? Are they correct? So why think **PRR **is a troll? How is he different that you?

This is spot on. Shodan and prr are both inflamed, throbbing buttholes, but they are not trolls.

[pseudotriton_ruber_ruber]

@Cervaise

This is spot on. Shodan and prr are both inflamed, throbbing buttholes, but they are not trolls.

Thank you. I appreciate the support.

The throbbing has subsided a little,

[Shodan]

@What_Exit

**Shodan **he writes posts that often pissed off many members of the board. He then has the nerve to stand by his beliefs. If we substituted conservative Republican posts with anti-religious posts, I would be describing you instead.

I’m not calling him a troll because of his political beliefs; I am calling him a troll because he trolls.

All he’s doing is stirring up shit.

Hell **Zoe **is usually the one that comes off looking crazy in the pit. She has a long history of crazy behavior and (near) stalking and then reminds us that she really does have mental problems when she gets called for it.

Why do you think he is picking at her? She gives him a response. That’s what he wants.

He got a shit load of attention, and some money, from Liberal a while back, who paid him to go away. Now he wants more attention, so he is back, trying to annoy Zoe enough to get her to melt down and get banned or warned. If she stops feeding him, he will look around for some one else to annoy and try to get attention or validation from there.

For all I know, he will get away with it, for a while at least. He is sort of like badchad, who waged a campaign against another Doper for months, and the mods bent over backwards to overlook it. Maybe this asshole will step over the line and get banned like badchad did; maybe not. I don’t know, and don’t particularly care. My impression is that he does not value his membership as much as a normal Doper would, since he accepted money to go away, and therefore will step closer and closer to the line and finally troll hard enough to get booted. Or just keep baiting and baiting, but only towards those who he thinks are vulnerable enough to fall for his trolling.

No cites for any of the above, in case anyone was going to ask. I might want to do a search on something else, and I don’t want to have to wait.

[Rubystreak]

@What Exit?

Shodan–you may not like PRR but Zoe’s claim that he’s a troll is based on the fact that he doesn’t write like George Bernhard Shaw armed with Strunk and White in every informal post–she’s gone on and on about how NO teacher would EVER write like PRR does.

Zoe is a big fan of the No True Scotsman argument: don’t agree with her? Then you’re not a teacher/professor. I don’t care how much you seem to know about this, no TRUE teacher would ever __________. I don’t care what evidence you offer or how many people vouch for you, no TRUE English professor would ever ______________.

The problem is, the blanks in those allegations can only be filled with the phrase “disagree with me.” Thus, she has no real reason, at this point, for doubt, except that she cannot countenance the possibility that someone she dislikes actually is a productive member of society, with a job in what she considers “her” area of expertise. No, that person must be a liar, since no one she dislikes has any merit as a person, or skills of their own. A despicable effort at discrediting and demeaning her opponent, with a truly baseless ad hominem attack.

@What_Exit

BTW: One small correction, while I do know that pseudotriton ruber ruber works for a University, I have no sure knowledge of his position. Though I do believe him. **Rubystreak **may have implied I know more than I do.

If you only know his first and last name, and you google it, the first link proves that he is what he says he is. Thus, you have enough info to know that he is telling the truth.

ETA: Shodan, how is PRR picking on Zoe? SHE followed him into HIS thread to cast aspersions on HIS credentials. She has done this many times before, because she is out to get him. Please try to get the story straight. Right now, Zoe is trying to get PRR banned for having socks. Should PRR not respond? Please. Don’t blame PRR for Zoe’s bad behavior. She’s a big girl, she can own that. If you want cites of all the occasions where she has tried to discredit him, I will find them for you, but tomndebb’s post should indicate to you that she has been borderline stalking him. Try not to let your personal dislike of someone cloud your apprehension of the facts. Leave that to Zoe-- that’s her schtick.

[Shodan]

@Rubystreak

ETA: Shodan, how is PRR picking on Zoe? SHE followed him into HIS thread to cast aspersions on HIS credentials. She has done this many times before, because she is out to get him. Please try to get the story straight. Right now, Zoe is trying to get PRR banned for having socks. Should PRR not respond? Please. Don’t blame PRR for Zoe’s bad behavior. She’s a big girl, she can own that. If you want cites of all the occasions where she has tried to discredit him, I will find them for you, but tomndebb’s post should indicate to you that she has been borderline stalking him. Try not to let your personal dislike of someone cloud your apprehension of the facts. Leave that to Zoe-- that’s her schtick.

You seem to be assuming that I believe the troll in question is such because of what Zoe says. This is not the case - there is more to it than that, as I mentioned earlier.

Still and all, this is a hijack, and also feeding the troll. Accordingly, I will bow out.

[Sarahfeena]

@Rubystreak

ETA: Shodan, how is PRR picking on Zoe? SHE followed him into HIS thread to cast aspersions on HIS credentials. She has done this many times before, because she is out to get him. Please try to get the story straight. Right now, Zoe is trying to get PRR banned for having socks. Should PRR not respond? Please. Don’t blame PRR for Zoe’s bad behavior. She’s a big girl, she can own that. If you want cites of all the occasions where she has tried to discredit him, I will find them for you, but tomndebb’s post should indicate to you that she has been borderline stalking him. Try not to let your personal dislike of someone cloud your apprehension of the facts. Leave that to Zoe-- that’s her schtick.

Really, Shodan…don’t encourage Zoe in these accusations against prr. They are not true, they are baseless as far as I can tell, and she trots them out whenever she feels like she wants to make a point against him. For some reason, she has a very strong need for everyone who shares her profession to hold to some standard of behavior that she sets for them. If they don’t live up to it, she seems to believe it reflects on her as a member of that profession. She needs to let that go and accept that the teaching profession, like all others, includes all kinds of people and personalities. Certainly, the standard of behavior on a message board is not the same as most of us hold for ourselves at work, no matter what kind of job we do.

Personally, I have many issues with prr. His internet manner is ruder than most (although sometimes his sense of humor does peek through), and I don’t agree with most of his opinions. However, I see no evidence that he doesn’t truly hold those opinions, and therefore, I can’t agree that he is a troll. Certainly, not for the reason that Zoe claims. Like Rubystreak, I know his name and I have his e-mail address at the University where he works. It would be an elaborate ruse indeed for him to hijack someone else’s name and e-mail address in order to fool me, a person who he has never met, probably doesn’t like that much, and has no stake in impressing whatsoever.

ETA: Saw your latest post after I posted this.