Preface: I wrote all of this before it was exposed – or maybe rescued – as a joke. Given the uncertainty left by the thread thus far, which if it were sincere seems to me to require an apology somewhere, I’ll leave it as it is, and take my lumps from those dopers hipper than I:
Hi, Lefty, and best wishes (the nickname was offered in the most sincere Odets frame of mind). I’ve often admired your words whether I agreed with them or not. Mostly I have.
You’re drawing an impressive amount of negative attention from relatively few posters who themselves have their fair share of detractors but don’t really fit the mold of People Who Just Shouldn’t Join Message Boards. This is (just my impression) because (a)you’re a little contentious and (b)because you tend to choose oblique, hard-to-meet grounds for contention, which makes it seem as if you’re being contentious just for the hell of it. I do this too, sometimes, and it’s a little amusing that we sometimes get in the way of insults meant for the other one. But there are a few, as Bohr called them, “predictabilities.” For people seriously engaged in a pitting, it’s just plain fucking annoying to be geared up for a Pit slugfest and have your rhetoric and insults and everything all planned out and have to stop dead and look up the word apophasis, or something, especially when it turns out not to really have a whole lot of impact on the original topic. Let’s take that thread (the one you reference) as our example.
In topics like the one referenced, your first post was entirely neutral, off-topic but responsive to another post, your second was very mildly contradictory to the OP but ended with a reference and challenge to whatever other posters you’re calling your “fan club” (how long have you been doing that, by the way? It’s as obvious as carrying around an “enemies list”) that said, specifically, “fuck 'em.” And that was the opening shot, and if it was justified, it was justified in some other thread, unless I missed something. Your next several posts, and those which interacted with them, were innocuous. Most of the next couple of pages were devoted to a discussion of CK Dexter Haven’s unhappily confusing a set of message board moderators with the message board itself. Your next post replied to an awfully oblique and mild criticism of Lord Ashtar (calling him a “mindreader” for making certain assumptions) that he had already answered. From that point, catsix (who had a personal interest in the thread) began spraying venom, and you (who doesn’t have a personal interest, isn’t that right?) responded instantly and enthusiastically. Near the bottom of page five catsix posted something that wasn’t an apology but wasn’t a continuation of hostilities either, saying that she felt jumped on by you but not responding in kind, and your next post called her a liar. No, that’s wrong, you called her a “*big, fat * liar.” Eventually, Scumpup joined in, and I have to confess, his posts signified a dislike for you more than they did a familiarity with the issues involved. But then Mhendo showed up to suggest, without animosity, that you cool it, and you attack him/her also.
Lefty, sometimes you can be correct without being right. I can attest to the fact that you sometimes side against moderators in threads attacking them. See, everybody? http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=351595&page=2&highlight=Czarcasm I can also say confidently that you are an exception to the conclusion I formed a couple of years ago that Asheville was populated by a gaggle of well-intentioned, uninformed nitwits. But I still think you’re more than halfway responsible for picking this fight, and that’s coming from someone on your side. Please consider calling it off.
