of Sock Puppets and Straw Men

[Kris]

"David B. Held" <dheld at codelogicconsulting.com> wrote in message 
news:fick79$u53$1 at digitalmars.com...
> Kris wrote:
>> "David B. Held" <dheld at codelogicconsulting.com> wrote
>>>> Let me ask you: Did you make that post, David? Be honest about it.
>>>
>>> Ok, ok, I admit it!  I did all of it!!!  I just wanted to stir the pot, 
>>> so first, I wrote an anonymous post that I knew would bait people like 
>>> you into responding in exactly the way I predicted.  Then, to avert 
>>> suspicion, I tried it again, but this time, did it in a clumsy way that 
>>> was easily traceable!  You figured it all out!  You are so brilliant!  A 
>>> sincere question deserves a sincere answer.
>>
>> I asked a simply question, and there's really no need to take this 
>> attitude.
>
> You asked a simple question, but I didn't see one ounce of sincerity in 
> it.  I just got done writing several long posts about the evils of 
> anonymous posting, and now you want to accuse *me* of being the poster??


Huh? Perhaps you should remind yourself that you are the one who's been 
playing sock-puppet games? As an anonymous poster?


>  Obviously, the original poster was far more sophisticated in the ways of 
> evading detection than I was, so let me ask you this...what would be my 
> reward for then making a clumsy *not-so-anonymous* post??  There are only 
> two conclusions to be made here:


Oh, it was perfectly sincere. You made all the implications that you knew 
exactly who the poster was, and it seemed the only way you could know for 
sure is if it had been you. I noted that and thus asked the question, to 
which you appeared to answer honestly. Have you been digging a hole for 
yourself?



> 1) you didn't take 5 seconds to think this through and realize that only 
> an utter moron would perform the sequence of events:
>
>   a) post as phango@
>   b) post as dheld@, "anonymously"
>   c) admit that b) was a ruse


There's little point in trying to second-guess you. Instead, I've merely 
been accepting what you admit to, or otherwise claim, as being the truth. 
You can't fault anyone for that.


> 2) you were not being sincere
>
> Now, you are saying that 2) is not the case, so you are basically calling 
> me a complete idiot for trying to pull off 1).  Your faux "sincerity" is 
> extremely annoying and does you no credit, and I take the insult quite 
> personally.


I asked a simple question and you answered it, noting it as being sincere. I 
can accept your answer or assume you are lying about it. I chose the former, 
since you had been honest about your sock-puppetry actions (though, in 
retrospect, perhaps your honesty there was due to being 'outed' ?).  The 
rest has been entirely in your hands.


>> I will admit to being saddened by the levels that you claim to stoop to, 
>> though I guess I should not be surprised given what you've previously 
>> claimed:
>
> You're "saddened"?  Oh, poor, poor crocodile...look at those big tears...


Again, I chose to assume you were being honest. You specifically said you 
were being sincere.


>> 1) that you deliberately subverted the integrity of the ng via your 
>> sock-puppet spoof
>> 2) that you'd be more than willing to do so again
>
> At least I'm honest.  You've never disclaimed being phango at .  Since you 
> seem to want a straight declaration, here it is: I AM NOT THE PERSON 
> POSTING AS phango at .  Let me ask you: Did you make that post, Kris? Be 
> honest about it (because if I didn't add this clause, you wouldn't be).


You claimed earler that it was actually you, and there was no reason to 
assume you meant otherwise. No, it wasn't me who posted that, either. It 
would be great if Walter would check the logs and find out who it was.


>> now you claim:
>>
>> 3) trolling against Tango is fair game for you (phangowant)
>
> Ok, since you seem to lack the basic comprehension of literary devices, 
> I'll spell this one out for you in excruciating detail: my "admission" 
> above is something called "sarcasm".  Here's a good reference: 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarcasm.  I think it's ok for me to quote an 
> excerpt:


Then you should drop the sarcasm?


> I felt that was all that your "sincere" query deserved as a response. So 
> to be perfectly explicit (since that seems to be what you need, in your 
> I'm-playing-literal-and-naive mode), this is a false conclusion because I 
> am not phango@, I do not endorse anything phango@ says, I am opposed to 
> trolling, and I have nothing against Tango the library, nor do I endorse 
> attacking the library.  On the other hand, I think every piece of work is 
> open for criticism (certainly including anything I've written), but that 
> is different from an attack in that a criticism has technical merit and an 
> attack does not.


We completely agree on the criticism aspect.


>> 4) doing so with the intent to generate a flame fest was your goal 
>> ("baiting people ... exactly the way I predicted")
>
> Kris, if this is really a sincere interpretation of my words, I have to 
> wonder if you simply have a hard time communicating with other people via 
> idioms and expressions and forms of speech which are not literal?  I 
> understand that there are specific cognitive defects which can lead to 
> this situation, but usually the are the result of some developmental 
> disability that is more systemic in nature.  You don't seem to merely be a 
> high-functioning autistic or Aspberger's patient, but I don't get to see 
> you in your normal milieu, so I can't make any kind of guess as to your 
> condition.


Again, there was no reason to believe you were not being sincere. After all, 
you don't find sock-puppetry to be distasteful. Trolling is the lesser evil 
in my book.



>> [...]
>> Thanks. Well, given the claims you've made so far, I'd say the NG is an 
>> inappropriate place to conduct any kind of rational discourse. I mean, 
>> what's the point if people like you are more than willing to (as you've 
>> described) subvert and/or pervert the environment? I (perhaps ignorantly) 
>> thought it was a place for D enthusiasts to discuss related topics, 
>> rather than for those with some kind of twisted agenda. That's too bad.
>
> Yes, it is too bad.  Apparently, all the "rational" discourse goes on in 
> IRC, which is clearly where the D newsgroup should migrate (not the least 
> of all because *you* are there).  If only the perverts and the subverts 
> would go away, the D newsgroup would become a playground of rational 
> discourse by D enthusiasts.  My "twisted agenda" has rained down hellfire 
> and brimstone on the face of D, and everything has come grinding to a 
> halt.  Oh, woe is we!  Woe is we!  Let us put on sackcloth and ashes and 
> mourn for the death of our beloved newsgroup...


You had claimed to be both a puppeteer and a troll. I would say that 
represents a twisted agenda. The drama you're making out of this just makes 
you look a bit silly, imo


> Kris, let me remind you that the instigator of this thread was that 
> anonymous coward posting as phango at .  And what fanned the flames was


To which you had claimed was you.


> when you and Jeff accused Janice of being that coward (though you yourself 
> still have not disclaimed being phango@).  At that point, the thread left 
> the realm of "rational discourse" and ceased being about D at all.  Trying 
> to impute the nature of the subsequent posts to the rest of the newsgroup 
> is about as irrational as one can get (and you have shown me just how 
> irrational one can get).  For instance, I invite you to show how I have 
> "subverted" or "perverted" the environment outside of this thread.  Go 
> ahead and try.  I'm calling you out.


Did I say you did?

Instead, I've simply noted what you claimed to have done. You deliberately 
manipulated the ng with your sock-puppetry - that's subversion. You were 
quite explicit that you'd happily do so again (perhaps /threatened/ is more 
appropriate?). You then claimed to be the "phangowant" troll, and explicitly 
noted how you were trying to manipulate other posters. Did you expect a pat 
on the back for this?


>> [...]
>> Yes, I'm aware how the business environment operates. And yes, Tango will 
>> always be a free product as far as I'm concerned. Why would it not be? 
>> Tango exists because we are D enthusiasts.
>
> Oh, that's interesting.  Do all the other Tango contributors agree with 
> you, or are you the official spokesman for the library?


Did I say I was? You asked my opinon, and I replied "as far as I am 
concerned". End of story.


> What if someone else tried to sell Tango with a license?  What would you 
> do?


No idea. How is this relevant to your sock-puppetry?



>> [...]
>> There's really no need to utterly wig-out, is there? I asked a perfectly 
>> innocent, and what I thought to be reasonable, question.
>
> I'm sorry, Kris.  I thought your question was as "sincere" as the others 
> in your last post and I reacted accordingly.  We obviously have a major 
> disagreement over what constitutes "sincerity".


I've tried to be clear and sincere toward you. If you find you cannot 
respond in kind, that is your choice.


>> I asked only because you seemed  to be hinting in that direction.. 
>> However,
>> I'll take your reply to be an  affirmation in the negative sense.
>
> Oh, interesting...here you seem to be able to read between the lines after 
> all!  Amazing!!!  Mr. Literal was able to properly detect sarcasm! It's a 
> miracle!  Notice how selectively you do it, though.  When you read one 
> sarcastic passage literally and another figuratively, it casts serious 
> doubts over your "sincerity".


What I saw resembled a meltdown. I doubt anyone needed to read between any 
lines there?


> Unlike you, Kris, I feel no need to trumpet my credentials or declare how 
> magnificent my work is.  It's easy enough for someone to find different 
> things that I've worked on, if for some reason that interests them.  But 
> you won't ever see me spell it out here, as a matter of principle.  I've 
> always felt that if you need to say how great your work is, it's because 
> there aren't enough other people saying it for you.


Strawman. I don't actually trumpet my own work. If you're talking about 
Tango, my contribution is just that: a contribution. As you know, there are 
lots of people involved, and it is that collection of skills and ideas that 
make Tango the great peice of work that it is. Even Tango detractors have 
nice things to say about it.


>> Thank you for clarifying my original two questions regarding your posts 
>> over Tango.
>
> Oh, you're most welcome, Mr. Literal-When-It's-Convenient.  You think you 
> are so clever what with your faux innocence and crocodile tears, and yet 
> you freely admit that you are a prickly person that does not always play 
> well with others.  Why pretend some of the time and not others?  I would 
> respect you a lot more if you didn't play these "I'm going to be naive and 
> innocent and literal now because it suits me" games and just stuck to your 
> "I don't care what people think" line.


Sad.