eric@snark.UUCP (Eric S. Raymond) (01/18/88)
Well. There seems to be a rash of pseudo-posters going around.
In particular, it now seems that we have both a pseudo-weemba and a pseudo-MES,
both (and you thought it wasn't possible!) more obnoxious than the originals.
Will they lock horns in some stupendous final gotterdammerung of net.flamage?
Could the net as we know it survive if they did? :-)
There is a lesson here. I think these impostures went unsuspected for quite a
while (by netters besides the authors) because both the originals post in
emotional monotones -- weemba's of a corrosive and mean-spirited intellectual
cynicism, MES's hate- and fear-filled ranting (the result in both cases
is a sad waste of considerable intelligence and expressive gifts).
For both of them, the sorts of stylistic complexities and communicative nuances
that might make them distinguishable from imitators are drowned out by the
volume and intensity of their personal obsessions. And it's easier to imitate
a scream than a melody.
The lesson: if you don't want to be an easy target for pseudo-posters, don't
let your net.personality become a monomaniac, a cartoon, or a self-caricature.
And it wouldn't hurt any of us to remember that we are all more complex than
our postings...
<subscribers to news.groups only may wish to hit 'n' here>
I never believed weemba was crazy, though the thought of living in his mind
gives me the cold shivers. I have publicly suggested that MES is non compos
mentis, suggesting that many of what were apparently his postings gave evidence
of paranoia. But I am not attached to my judgements of people, especially
negative ones formed from looking at streams of ASCII characters, and I see
that I and others may have been misled by impostor postings.
I therefore wish to go on record that I no longer have a position on MES's
sanity or lack of it. I will continue to suspend judgement on the matter until
it is established whether or not the pseudo-MES authored the more extreme and
paranoid-appearing posts we have ascribed to MES.
Should that turn out to be the case, I will immediately post a full apology
for and retraction of my previous remarks...integrity demands no less.
--
Eric S. Raymond
UUCP: {{seismo,ihnp4,rutgers}!cbmvax,sdcrdcf!burdvax,vu-vlsi}!snark!eric
Post: 22 South Warren Avenue, Malvern, PA 19355 Phone: (215)-296-5718