Subject: [Tweeters] almost2human is trolling
Date: Sep 28 21:08:56 2005
From: Rob Saecker - rsaecker at thurston.com


At 8:59 AM -0700 9/28/05, Charles Swift wrote:

>This looks like a "troll" (google it for more information)
>especially since this person is remaining anonymous. It appears to
>have worked to some extent - I would ignore it.

With all due respect, I submit that Charles has mis-identified the
sub-species of sub-human represented by almostAhuman. Rather than a
troll, almostAhuman represents the sub-species netkop; that is,
somone who feels it is their job to go around policing other people's
activites on the net, even though no one else recongnizes that they
have any such authority. Trolls can be identifed most easily by
their public behavior: they typically post some inflamitory comment
publically, in hopes of inciting an over-reaction from the residents
of the (virtual) neighborhood that they are trolling. Netkops, on the
other hand, are more likely to do their netkopping privately, in
hopes that their victim will not realize that the netkop has no
authority, and not realizing this, will do as the netkop says. In
truth, of course, there is considerable overlap in the behavior of
the netkop and the troll, which is why the two have been given
sub-species rather than full species status.

Now, Tweeters has seen netkops before, and probably will again. A
couple of people have expressed some discomfort with the fact that
Connie posted the netkop's private email to the list. I say, that was
absolutely the right thing to do. Netkops need to be exposed for what
they are: busybodies who want to censor what the rest of us see, just
because *they* don't like it. Shine the light of day on 'em and watch
'em scurry for cover; any bets on the likelyhood of almostAhuman
coming along to publicly defend their actions? No?

Keep up the good work Connie.
--
Rob Saecker
rsaecker at thurston.com