Slashdot's Disagree Mail 354
There is an old Japanese proverb that goes, "Better than a
thousand days of diligent study is one day with a great teacher."
This week's mail is all about teaching. Whether it is about the
seriousness of psychic ability, a short history of trolls or
explaining how much free time and malice your dad's attorney has,
these people just want to impart information. If what they sent me is any indication, they had a lot of sick days. Click on the link below to
become enlightened.
This lady doesn't like the message you get on our banned page because
it belittles psychics and the good work they do.
On Sat, 4 Jun 2005 ******** wrote:
"I normally don't take the time to write to anyone on the internet because they are so rude and closed minded but I must object to your flippant use of the term psychic in the banned message I received. First off I did nothing wrong on purpose to you. If something was wrong it was a mistake. My mother has done a lot of work with local law enforcement and once for FBI. She helps people while you punish them. I've not yet developed my skills enough to help anyone but I do have glimpses. Many reputable brokerage houses and even former presidents rely on psychics for decisions. Maybe if you opened your mind you wouldn't need to punish people for no reason."
Here is a guy that knows a lot about trolls
On Wed, 5 Apr 2006 ******* wrote:
"Dude your troll option don't make sense! I know yall think that it means someone bad but trolls used to be good. They'd build stuff if you left them bread or wine and they made the viking gods armor and spears. Don't let a few years of internet people destroy what something means. Be smarter than that! Yall don't have to play follow the leader. learn about trolls. I guess some were bad and you have to trick them into cutting open his belly in an eating contest but that doesn't even matter when it comes to what your saying. Do some research."
Finally we have a man who wanted me to delete all of his comments. When I explained that I couldn't, he sent me this.
On Mon, 9 Jun 2008 ******** wrote:
"Holy Shit are you guys fucked! If I own my words your fucking page says so! I asked my dads lawyer and he said you are fucked to. He doesn't do much because my dad is honest not like your users bunch of liberal fags! My dads lawyer is a mean sonabitch and would love to sue you back into the darkages he said so. I almost hope you don't change your mind. I'd love to be there when it all goes down in court. You could do what you know is right and what is right for a place that is supposed to be about customers (readers). If you don't try and do what your reader wants you to do without having him tell you all the time then you are a good business. If not then you are getting YOUR ASS SUED!! If you made cars and I wanted you to crush it and you said no you wouldn't be in business long. Get a fucking CLUE. If I don't want people to see me I can go inside but if I don't want people to read me you won't get rid of my posts? BULLSHIT!! you have to or youll get a call from my dads lawyer buy Friday and then hell will rain down on you. DO WHATS RIGHT AND GET RID OF ME!!!"
Might As Well Try to Discuss This (Score:5, Insightful)
"This lady doesn't like the message you get on our banned page..."
What is Slashdot's banned page? I did not know such a thing existed. If you were a bot, I suspect you'd be banned but how does a psychic get banned? What are the conditions that cause a user to get banned? Has anyone else seen this?
"My mother has done a lot of work with local law enforcement and once for FBI."
What is it with nutjobs and claiming they have done work for important government agencies? Yeah, I understand there was a program in the 70s to explore using psychics against the commies but is there a form of dementia that causes one to hallucinate that they are serving a higher power? You know like John Nash or Tom Cruise [youtube.com] style? I'm sorry, that wasn't really fair to Doctor Nash.
--
"I guess some were bad and you have to trick them into cutting open his belly in an eating contest but that doesn't even matter when it comes to what your saying."
Is this a reference to some historical myth that I am missing? I think I understand where this (satire) is coming from in that some mythologies contained trolls or troll like creatures. But what is the eating contest reference to? Anyone heavy on Norse mythology or is this some remote Fantasy reference?
--
"If I own my words your fucking page says so!"
Despite he fail English possible, I have always been interested in what your disclaimer means for us, the ones who post. You make that claim to avoid legal troubles, I understand, but if we own what we post here, what are our rights. I have no way of easily accessing my prior posts. I often remember a post I made about something (like Iceland) and I have to go to Google for it because there is simply no way to page through all my comments in my user page. Sometimes someone replies with a thread linking to a useful open source tool and I can never remember what story it was on or where it was attached.
Also, what happens if Slashdot goes offline or is shutdown in the future? What will happen to all my 'property'? Have you considered allowing users to export posts, threads or stories? It would most likely be too taxing for the server but if these posts are owned by the users, shouldn't they be made available to them for keeping in their records?
"you have to or youll get a call from my dads lawyer buy Friday"
My god, lawyers have figured out how to license days of the week! Quickly, how do I acquire the rights to 'Saturday'? I'll be rich!
I think that this last post indicates clearly that we (Americans) are an overly litiguous society. We are so dependent on lawyers that childish remarks immediately default to "my dad's lawyer will sue you." This individual sounds like a minor and I suspect that overexposure to lawsuits and court cases have brought this on. Don't confuse this with 'justice.' "I'm going to beat you up" has been simply replaced with "I'm going to sue you!" And although the violence element has been removed, there is still this overly aggressive, unjust attitude saturated from the highest corporations to the immaturest minds.
One more thing, why is my preview formatting all funny on Idle?
"DO WHATS RIGHT AND GET RID OF ME!!!" (Score:2, Insightful)
Please just stop (Score:5, Insightful)
with the emails.
There aren't really enough, and I guess I don't have enough of a sense of humor to really get this non-sequitur summary and emails.
the troll post was a good troll (Score:1, Insightful)
YHBT.
Free advice for Taco: (Score:5, Insightful)
If you want to fix your toilet, don't hire an electrician.
If you want to rewire your house, don't hire a landscaper.
If you want humorous content on slashdot, maybe you should hire a fucking comedy writer.
This makes me want to send a rude email. (Score:5, Insightful)
How about, please stop putting this on the front page. By definition nothing under idol should make it to the font page.
You know "Slashdot, News for Nerds. Stuff that counts."
Idiots on the Internet isn't news and none of this counts.
BTW why can't you delete all the posts made by somebody?
If they didn't post as an AC then a simple query should bring up their posts and then you could delete them or at least the body of the message.
Of course it wouldn't take out replies or quoted text.
Yes I do know the difference between possible and practical but this does seem possible but I should wouldn't want to have to do it.
Re:Please just stop (Score:4, Insightful)
Not to mention you're only encouraging people to troll you like all three of these obviously were.
Re:Good advice (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is that idle.slashdot.org is now coming to us on the front page. The advice is just to never go there, but now we have to actively take steps to fight it off.
There's an "In Soviet Russia..." joke in this somewhere, I'm sure.
bizzaro slashdot (Score:2, Insightful)
With the white on green, this should be renamed to bizzaro slashdot. Add a goatee, too, while you are at it.
-fragbait
think of the children! (re: no white on green) (Score:5, Insightful)
The white text on green background is very difficult to read. Please consider using the "boring" old black text on white background.
Re:the banned page (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Trolls.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Wow, correct usage of the word "Ironically." These days, that, in itself, is ironic.
To Slashdot (Score:2, Insightful)
That is all.
Re:Please just stop (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't think they were trolls. I've dealt with too many emails like that from people who were serious.
Also, I like the mail. Too bad the force you to read it~
Re:TOS (Score:3, Insightful)
It's not worth running a site without a ToS. Too many idiots.
Of course a TOS is necessary to protect the site owners. But as a comparison, even though you've granted Facebook the necessary rights to allow them to publish your content and still retain immunity from any liability, Facebook has the option to delete your account and all associated content.
Slashdot is one of the few sites that posts your public content but has no facility to delete it.
Re:the banned page (Score:3, Insightful)
That's why some genius invented the semicolon; I noticed its conspicuous absence, as well!