Firestarter

Negative reinforcement per se is more effective, and indirectly makes rare positive reinforcement more effective as well. Right. Except for a few posters, for reasons unknown, posts no longer come up as posts by the poster who posted them if the poster who posted them posted them prior to the error. <glances back at that sentence and considers its syntatical similarity to the age-old question "How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?"> <shrugs> <flames back>

...which would only disqualify a little under 1% of all posters on practically any message board.

Agreed. Preferably involving napalm.

Hang on a minute... are you saying people think you're GAY?

It's quite easy to simply delete insults. I'm not saying that that's what you did, because I have no proof and frankly I no longer care; I'm willing to cede the point. There's nothing in your PM with which I substantively agree, and I like to argue about substance rather than form. Then consider it granted. The cookie's been stale for over a year anyway. I could, but it wouldn't be as much fun or anywhere near as effective. Spare the rod and spoil the child. Conflict draws out truth. Compromise and coddling muddy it, and create flabby, lazy minds. Well, the thread is there. The page is there. I glanced at it earlier. The reduction in post count that you're seeing is due to a board error a while ago; posts from a few months were removed from the post count, but the actual posts still exist.

You have an interesting definition of "history." If you insist. As I said, I deleted it; there's no way for me to know if what you quoted was the original PM or not. It doesn't matter anyway. You were, or should have been, perfectly aware that it would be unwelcome. Reading it now, it seems fairly well-reasoned, and I agree with pretty much all of it. Like Tom, (and, it seems, like you), I think flaming on internet message boards is a ridiculously trivial offense. Would you like a cookie? It wasn't a comment on your tenure on the board; I couldn't care less about such things. It was a comment on your sudden appearance in that particular thread, seemingly for no other reason than the fact that bob barron had complimented me for some reason I don't care about enough to look up right now and you had taken exception to it. Simply because you were the closest thing to Chong I could think of. Yes, I believe I just did. Flaming people in political discussions has nothing to do with class. Bringing private exchanges into public does. Shit, I haven't really insulted you yet. Er... you're stupid, yeah that's the ticket.

...wow, pot meet kettle, eh? Nope. I just shoot down stupid shit other people say. I don't start threads attempting to reform all Democrats or complaining about why people vote for Democrats and how I don't understand it or appreciate it and how much I wish everyone would just stop it! I'm not a demagogue, I'm not a messiah, and I'm not a martyr. If I ever start to behave like one, then you may feel free to criticise me not only for that, but for being a hypocrite as well. Until then, shut up.

'k. I didn't want to do this, because I dislike airing dirty laundry that should remain private. But since your ego is hung up on this one particular point, however much I try to be nice, and make up for your lack of anything even vaguely resembling class, you're going to keep bring it up over and over and over again until I deal with it. Fine. Let's get this over with. Over a year ago, Banky started a thread complaining about a comment bps21 made about some wrestler. That evolved into a discussion about mental diseases for some reason I don't care about enough to determine right now, which wound down eventually of its own accord. Following that, Banky made some noises about leaving TSM forever and going to WDI, and all of a sudden you popped up. You took a comment someone else had made about me and went off for paragraph after paragraph, shrieking for my head, demanding that someone ban me, and calling the mods and admins hypocrites for not having done so. We exchanged a few flames. Fair enough so far. Finally, Dames stepped in and closed the thread, telling you to make your complaints directly to him in Site Feedback. This is when things got messy. You had written a beautiful fifteen-paragraph essay for my benefit. Now the world would be deprived of your sparkling prose. You couldn't post it in the thread, because Dames had closed it. You couldn't really start a new thread and post it in that, because Dames had told you to take up your concerns with him, and your post was addressed to me. There was no way out of the quandary. Your eyes moistened with tears of frustration at the unfairness of it all. Your lower lip began to quiver and your chin wobbled. Your knuckles whitened and a sob rose in your aching throat. But wait! Out of the darkness, competing with the glow of the computer screen, a light bulb began to flicker dimly over your head. You could send me the essay over which you'd laboured so long and so ardently in a private message! Brilliance itself! You would gain the attention from me that you were so desperately seeking. Your imaginative insults, your rapier-like wit, your rock-solid arguments would not go unread after all. Perhaps I would even respond! Your life would finally, finally have meaning once more. Only... I didn't. I deleted your message without reading past the first insult. Then I blocked you. You remain blocked today. Why? Ironically, because you did exactly what you were accusing me of doing. Only in a more offensive way. You flamed me outside the flaming folder. Not only that, but you flamed me in a PM. And people have been banned for that - in fact, the guy Banky referenced in his initial post in that thread was banned for exactly that. Why? Let us draw an analogy. Say person A disagrees with person B on a particular point. Is it in order for A to argue with B, perhaps heatedly, at a cocktail party? Absolutely. At a dinner? Sure. In fact, in any social situation? Of course. Now say A is told by the host of a given dinner to knock it off, to stop arguing with B. A stops. The next day, A, seething with arguments and insults unheard, writes an insulting letter to B and sends it through the mail. Do you see where I'm going with this? What you did constitutes harassment. You were told to cease and desist (whether or not you did so as you claim I have no way to determine, since, as I said earlier, I blocked you almost immediately) because you were invading my privacy and attempting to impose yourself upon my time. Now if I were you (and I thank God that I'm not), that isn't something I'd willingly bring up a year later. Yet you seem to think that it makes you some kind of martyr. Here's a heads-up: you're not. You're just arrogant, stupid, childish, and (for some reason) obsessed with me. Allow me to suggest that you should take up a hobby. Perhaps something involving nitroglycerine?

Oddly enough, you still seem to be able to post. So... why were you whining again? Right next to Carol Moseley-Braun, about as serious, and about as funny. "What's wrong with message boards today?" Yeah, I guess I have to agree with you there. And that still makes you seethe with impotent rage, does it? Oh good. Anytime.

Well, being limited to "I need the pills, oh God, give them back, I need them so bad" won't be all that big a deal if his only opposition is Tyler. He'll still seem at least relatively focused, on topic, and convincing.

Absolutely agreed, in light of this CNN story: Rodney King arrested yet again I hope all the idiot rioters are shuffling their feet and feeling thoroughly ashamed of themselves for making such a fuss over this worthless piece of trash.

Then what the hell was up with your "No on recall, yes on Bustamante" shit? Just mindlessly parrotting the party line? If so, how did you summon the sheer brazen gall to bitch about Mike (so you say) parrotting Rush Limbaugh?

Probably Hound of the Baskervilles for the character studies and the atmosphere, and Dancing Men for the ending and the explanation. "Cancer Marney" is an X-Files reference, yes.

No offense taken. I don't have any expertise in this area myself; as I said, I called and asked the labs because I was curious. I couldn't lecture anyone on any point involved because I was just given a brief summary over the telephone of the many difficulties which make such a identification a practical impossibility, and that was a few years ago.

Original post: Click here for the GC thread.

Waht wrod wuold taht be, JINGES? flaym JINGES

Yeah, I know. Thanks. No. Where did you read that? Raped, mugged, and abducted at 85 mph? That'd be some trick. First it was a tampon, now it's a stick. Make up your mind, or, if you're capable of it, come up with a new insult. Thank goodness. Idiot.

... Pat Robertson turns you on? Okaythanksbye.

So am I. But couldn't we make it about something more interesting?

Oh my goodness, did I intrude upon a private conversation? Then use the PM system next time, you stupid fucking chimp.

That's grand. But wait, I just realised something. No one really cares.

He does this all the fucking time. He starts the same fucking topic in one forum after another, bemoaning the lack of discussion, is promptly told to shove it in his ass by one person or another, whines about the decline of online message boards in general or TSM in particular, goes silent for a month or two, then comes back and starts saying the EXACT SAME THING in another forum. That seems to be the extent of his "contributions." The best part is that the brainless twerp freely admits to reading something he considers a complete waste of time, and then he proceeds to waste his own time wailing about how it's all so useless and how he's so fed up of it all. You're a total dildo, Chong. A cretin almost beyond compare. At least the rest of us waste our time in ways we enjoy.

In denigrating, contemptuous terms, assuming an air of superiority as you tried to educate the masses and lead them to enlightenment. You look absurd. Because as we all know that's exactly what messiahs do. Wait, no. Brilliant comeback. Next time stick your fingers in your ears and repeat loudly, "I am rubber, you are glue!" Oh, I'm sorry, did my nasty mean language bruise your tender little feelings, you fucking submoronic diarrhoea-spouting Mongoloid dipshit? No, LaParka did, and I was addressing HIM. Grand. We're all so happy you've risen to the next level of existence. Now kindly plant yourself crosslegged atop a pine tree, FUCK OFF, and SHUT UP. I hate peanuts.

Ditto.

Because he "did his homework" on something that, according to him, is a COMPLETE WASTE OF TIME (a contention which, to my knowledge, no one has disputed). Which word in his original post did you not understand? How pathetic is it that he does his "homework" on something like that in the first place, while simultaneously decrying its very existence? Frankly, Chong, I think you're probably the most ludicrous, pompous, affected little twit I've seen spouting these lines since The Man in Blak took an extended sabbatical. Could you at least try to be original? "Message boards are in decline! No one talks about important things anymore! I'm trying to improve you all! It's for your own good! Listen to me! Pay attention to me! Explain why you're all being so stupid! What's wrong with you?! This is for your own good! Don't you understand?!" WHY are you reading the thread if it's such pointless, petty, time-wasting, uninteresting, stupid, garbage, you complete fucking idiot? Are you really this thick? How the hell does it bother you if OTHER PEOPLE choose to waste THEIR OWN FUCKING TIME on such "minute things?" What the hell is your problem? Could you lose the messiah complex? And could you please, for the love of God almighty, buy a fucking thesaurus and look up some synonyms for the word "petty?"