Do I win a prize?

[aquaeri]

I think JAD was trying to offend me here, but somehow I'm charmed and amused that either my gender online is not obvious, or I behave sufficiently outside his gender expectations to upset him?

Message-ID:
From: James A. Donald Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.composition

Comments

[micheinnz]

Considering the day I've just had, I think "OH FOR FUCK'S SAKE" covers it nicely.

[heleninwales]

I did tentatively peep into rasfc the other week -- and then spent part of the night lying awake composing posts to DF.

DF and JAD are the reasons I won't go back. :(

[annafdd]

Yep.
Somebody told me that under UK law, if somebody does something you perceive as harassing for at least three times, it counts as harassment. JAD is so disruptive that I'd be tempted to lure him into it, if I thought I had any chance of getting the law to bear on him.
Frankly - I think it would be worth it because he more or less singlehandedly drove people away from the forum. Him and DF, but I won't make the case that DF is harrassing people. JAD clearly is.

[heleninwales]

I simply had JAD killfiled, so virtually never read his posts unless he was quoted by someone else. DF just hits all my buttons though and I cannot resist arguing back, which is why I now stay away. He is not good for my mental health, but (unlike JAD) I don't believe he means any harm. He seems to think everyone else enjoys arguing as much as he does. :(

[aquaeri]

DF is as far as I can tell, entirely well-intentioned but has a severe empathy lack, and I suspect some other issues around complexity. If you read a bit about his (very famous) parents he treats the entire world the way the world worked in his childhood.

[ailbhe]

He's an asshole. Does that help?

[aquaeri]

I've noticed ;-/. He's a particularly interesting example, in the sense that I've never met anyone like him in the flesh, and I'm not actually sure he has ever interacted with any women at all. He makes statements that are jaw-droppingly bizarre about us.

[cakmpls]

Nothing I have ever read about that newsgroup explains to me why any decent and sane person wants to spend any time there.

[zeborahnz]

You know those novels you read where the protagonist goes to a university where people debate ideas, in class and out, in scholastic camaraderie and everyone's thoughtful and clever and witty?

Rasfc used to be just like that, and some of us like to hold on to the delusion that one day we might make it so again.

[aquaeri]

It was, as Zeborah explains, actually a really nice place once upon a time. Unfortunately, the nice people are leaving and the assholes are more and more dominant.

[cakmpls]

That's a large part of the reason I stopped participating in rec.arts.disney.parks.

[zeborahnz]

It's possible that he thinks that the world is so politically correct (avert, avert!) that you've decided to claim to be female in order to reap all the manifold benefits that automatically accrue to women.

[aquaeri]

Yes, I'm sure, so I could complain about not being successful in my job and claim it was due to sexism and be believed, no wait, that's not working for me.

There's definitely a thing JAD and DFF and similar have where they believe PC has gone so far that it is actually advantageous to be female or black or gay or whatever. It just demonstrates exactly how much privilege == obliviousness.