Newsgroups: rec.arts.comics.misc From: [t--g] at [netcom.com] (Tom Galloway) Subject: tyg treatise #2: OM Organization: Coalition for Traditional Usenet Values Date: Mon, 25 Mar 1996 04:45:09 GMT This is #2 of 4 final posts (well, actually 6; #3 was too big for a single post). #4 will explain the reason for my doing so. Unless some factual error is pointed out in these, I won't be responding to followups on these. And I may not even read followups at all. Sigh. This one's probably the hardest of the four to write, just because of the sick feelings of actually having to deal with this. I apologize for the length, but consider that we're dealing with nine years of harrassment here. Five internal parts here: Part 1: What OM is, as phrased by Joe (Babylon 5) Straczynski Part 2: Current r.a.c. Attitudes Towards OM and Myself Part 3: The Unfortunately Standard Post on OM's History. Part 4: Commentary by Old-Timers Backing My Version of OM's History Part 5: Bob's Latest Spew of Lies Part 1: What OM is, as phrased by Joe (Babylon 5) Straczynski Here's the gist: Sometimes this is refered to as "the tyg-OM thing" or "the tyg-OM feud" or "tyg v. OM". All of these are incorrect, because they imply some relative closeness of intent and responsibility. What this is is, pure and simple, the story of someone, OM, who has been an obsessed stalker/harrasser for nine years of myself. Only in OM's paranoid fantasies can it be construed as my fault to any significant extent. I'll freely confess to being less than pleased with him, and indicating it more often in recent years. But this was due to the realization that he was not going to ever give it up, and the quite reasonable amount of anger at his harrassment. However, I never engaged in his gratuitous personal attacks and crap. If you find something wrong in someone not being pleased with someone who's been harassing them for close to a decade, stop reading now; you're someone who has no hope of understanding this. As an introduction, I find it ironic that OM has recently been making Babylon 5 references in his nicknames. Actually, I find it doubly ironic in that the ones he applies to himself reference a character who has moved from comic relief to a dark persona responsible for billions of deaths, while the ones he applies to me reference a character who has been redeemed and is becoming better than he was. But the main irony is that, Joe Straczynski, creator and auteur of B5, was driven off Usenet by people very similar to OM in his actions towards me. Here's an extract from Joe's farewell message: > To that effect, they lie, manufacture facts, speculate based on > premises that have no basis whatsoever in reality, engage in smear > campaigns, insult and abuse users of this area, drop innuendo when > they have nothing else to grab onto...they leap into threads that > should by all rights be reasonably safe from flame and turn them > into referendums on whether or not jms is a liar, in the kind of > logic that stems from "are you still beating your wife?" premises. > > The progression is always the same: a smear message, or an outright > fabrication, gets posted; it generates heated replies from other > users; those users are then attacked for being unthinking followers > or sycophants (when the reality is that the original message was > bone-headed and simply *wrong*), thus ensuring that the conversation > is not about the subject anymore, but rather the conversation becomes > about the conversation...and in that form, it can go on forever, > spreading out into more and more threads until all you see after a > while are flames in every direction. > > I try to stay out of it as much as I can...but sooner or later > something so odious, so despicable, such an obvious, irredeemable lie > gets posted that I lose my temper and have to respond. I sit here, > and take sucker punches to the face, every single time I sign on from > some of the outrageous stuff that goes on here; I take it quietly, > but after you're punched in the face three, four, five times a day, > for weeks at a time, damn it sooner or later you're going to hit back, > and hard. And that's when the same cadre of imbeciles comes back and > says, "Gee, look at that, see how badly he behaves?" > > More and more lately, I have been signing on here, and by the time I > log off, I'm furious. Furious for the unsubstantiated character > assassination directed against me...and over the course of the year > plus I've been here, not one -- not ONE -- of the allegations from > Fuller, Fuller or Thaxton have *ever* been proven out, but they just > forget that and move on to the next attack...as well as the attacks > on other users here who have chosen to defend me against these > baseless attacks. >... > I've tried reasonable appeals; those were taken as signs of weakness, > turned into further attacks, and ultimately failed. I've asked > people here *not* to respond to these abusive individuals, because > if they get only silence for their efforts, they will go away; they > live for the echo of pain caused by their words; find validation and > reason to live in that echo. That failed. And now the level of > toxicity has risen to a level that can no longer be tolerated. > > And before anyone even *tries* to turn this into "oh, joe just doesn't > want to hear negative stuff about his show, he doesn't want to hear > any criticism, he just wants to be god" (and you know who you are, > and fuck you too), it's got *nothing* to do with criticism of the > show, positive or negative, made from having genuinly thought out > the problems. I've always responded well to any kind of criticism > that is well-considered, and always will. > > This has to do with a small handful of people who have, through > their incessant, stalking, compulsive behavior ruined this forum for > not only me but a great deal of other people who've emailed me to > say that they don't post here any more, because they've gotten > tired of being attacked, tired of reading the endless tirades and > smears and assaults on me and other users. The good people get > driven away, and the bad people refuse to go, or to moderate their > behavior, and there is no mechanism currently in place for others > here to moderate their behavior. >... > People ask why more producers don't come on-line. This is the > reason. Because there are some people out there who are obsessed > with anyone who has even the smallest celebrity (and there ain't > much smaller celebrity than being a producer); people who feel it > is their god-given obligation to tear down the other person, and > to make sure that there cannot *possibly* be anyone in their > universe more important than they themselves. They do not sow, > neither do they reap; they only shred and tear and abuse. That sums up OM's behavior and my attitudes toward it pretty much exactly (and probably better than I could write it, at least without spending more time on it that OM is worth, particularly now). Except that OM's managed to become obsessed with someone with even smaller celebrity than a producer; a Usenet newsgroup celebrity. To make it even more pitable, he got this obsession before Usenet was even known to more than 1-2% of the population of the US. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Part 2: Current r.a.c. Attitudes Towards OM and Myself Frankly, this upsets me almost as much as Bob's behavior, and in some ways more, since I've considerably higher respect for the people in question other than Bob. Of late in r.a.c., people have been saying things like "Don't do anything to set OM off." "It's as much your fault as Bob's when you're mean to him." "OM should get another chance to contribute to the group." "Bob's my friend, as is Tom." "I don't want to say anything against Bob; it might just set him off at me." And most unbelievable of all "Bob contributes more to r.a.c. than tyg does." At this point, it seems to me that r.a.c. has fallen straight down the Rabbit Hole. What all of these things do is basically say that I, as a nine year target and victim of Bob's unwarranted vendetta, somehow share responsibility for his actions. That it's better to cave in to someone making unwarranted personal attacks (note: *not* disagreement about comics issues. There's a distinction. See Joe's post above) than to support the target of same. That, frankly, you show more consideration for the bully than the victim, and for someone whose contributions to this hierarchy are minimal at best and well outweighed by his disruptions of it than for someone who has done much considered of value for it (based on things like Favorite r.a.c.er votes and my having done a fair amount of scutwork in terms of creating new groups, handling passing over the FAQ and rac.info, and doing the FAQ for several years). Or that Bob has basically cowed you; if you put him down, you open yourself to getting similar treatment as he's been doing to me. I semi-joke sometimes that a lot of my moral code comes from reading way too many superhero comics as a child. I suspect at least some of the people who have posted or mailed me things like the above may feel the same way. Personally, I'm very disappointed at the difference between actions here, and the archetypical superhero behavior of standing up to bullies and defending the innocent. This, not OM, contributes a fair amount to what I say in post #4. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Part 3: The Unfortunately Standard Post on OM's History. The following is a slightly updated version of what I periodically had to post for several years, in regards to Bob's daily spew. Sigh. Time to post this again, for the benefit of newbies wondering what OM's problem is. Unfortunately, when Bob has managed to stay on the net for longer than a few months, it becomes necessary to repost this every few months. What'll usually happen is that Bob'll post a followup claiming that I'm making this all up, followed by a number of oldtimers following up that I'm not. OK, here are the basics of the "tyg/OM" thing. Or, as I prefer to think of it, the "OM thing". Bob got on the net circa 1987. He came on with a style that involved massive flaming at anyone who disagreed with him; whether the disagreement was about facts or about opinion, whether the disagreement was polite or flaming made no difference. Among other things, Bob claimed knowledge of upcoming events and unnamed contacts in the industry. This information was wrong, more often than not, as were some of his response to questions about comics trivia. Some of these I corrected him on, and in what seems to have been my damning offense against Bob, was correct in my corrections. After a bit, Chuq von Rospach, then a frequent poster here, announced he was putting OM in his kill file and urged others to do the same. I'll note that OM actually has improved over nine years; his initial posting style was *much* more severe than his current one. Think RobRaza for his early style. For whatever reasons, Bob fixated on Chuq and myself as net.gods out to, as Dan'l Danehy-Oakes once put it "rule the bwahahaha net and do dirt to him". He cut down his more general insults to focus on us. For several *years*, it was an article of faith that any post by Bob would contain a gratuitous personal insult towards Chuq and/or myself, whether either of us was even posting in the thread in question. At some point in here, then frequent poster Karen Williams sent Bob email asking why he was doing this as she thought both Chuq and I were nice people who'd not done such to justify such treatment. Bob responded asking if she knew if Chuq or I would be at San Diego that year as he had a baseball bat and a gun he wanted to use on us. Bob has since admitted sending this in public on racm. Karen decided that email confidentiality didn't apply to death threats and forwarded the email to Chuq and myself. We considered notifying the Austin police, but after checking out Bob via our own contacts in Austin we decided he was unlikely to carry out the threat. We did learn what he looked like, just in case. We also learned that many of his claims of experience were tremendously exaggerated; for example, he would claim to be a professional journalist and critic. Turned out what he'd actually done was a very few stories for the UTexas paper, as confirmed by two separate Texan editors-in-chief; once they finished laughing at the concept of Bob being a pro journalist. We also learned that Bob's offline persona was quite similar to his online one. Or, as someone put it "Bob's the kind of person who walks into a crowded room where no one knows him, and within 5 minutes there's a heated discussion going on among everyone about where the nearest place is to get a length of rope to hang him with." To make a long story short, Chuq eventually left r.a.c. due to Bob's constant flaming and insults. Keep in mind this was almost daily over *several years*. It tends to wear one down after a while, and make one wonder what the point is of putting up with it. Save for two periods, one when I went on net.sabbatical for a year and a very anomolous few months late in 1993, Bob has continued his vendetta against me. It's been over nine years now, and frankly I'm tired of it. In that time, with the exception of the every few years need to explain just what the backhistory is for newcomers, I've at least 95% of the time limited myself to correcting only factual errors Bob has made or ignored him. Meanwhile, Bob has been the Energizer Bunny; he keeps going and going and going.... I'd decided that I'd no particular reason to be nice about Bob. I didn't go out of my way to flame him (unlike him towards me), but I'm wasn't going to be particularly nice about correcting his mistakes (still the only posts from him I followup on). I've no reason to; he's been carrying on a pointless vendetta against me for nine years. Ignoring him doesn't work; I've tried that for extended periods over the years. I've done nothing to deserve his treatment of me, and after nine years have no reason to believe he'll stop short of the reason he stopped with Chuq and stopped, so I'm told, with me for when I was on sabbatical. Namely, I leave rac. Over the years, based on Squiddy Favorite r.a.c.er results, the votes Bob got when he ran for Squiddy administrator (quite amazing; out of three people, he got as many votes amounting to "Cancel the awards rather than let him run them" as either of the two near tied front runners got in positive votes. To my knowledge, no other r.a.c. election has ever seen *any* such negative votes), and the result of the r.a.c. FAQ election it seem pretty clear that a lot more r.a.c.ers consider me a useful member of the group than do Bob. And based on his posts over the years, I honestly think that his core reason for his behavior amounts to jealousy over his lack of respect here. Actually, I used to somewhat pity Bob. The thing is, he could actually have been a respected r.a.c.er if he'd stuck to his not inconsiderable trivia knowledge and occasional accurate news tidbits...and could handle being corrected when he's wrong. But for whatever reason, he hit the net in such a way that he built up a bad net.rep that'd take anyone years to overcome...even if he hadn't spent those years further cementing that rep. He knows his rep is bad, and pretty much all he has left is maintaining the trap he's set for himself. Still, while I pitied him, it doesn't mean that I feel he's in any way a victim here, nor do I feel any guilt about not being nice to someone who has engaged in a one sided vendetta, including a death threat and slams at friends of mine, for nine years. I doubt many or even any of you would not feel the same way after nine years of such. These days, I figure that nine years means he's pathological. There was a standing offer for at least seven years on my part; if Bob knocked off the insults, I'd not post anything about him or in response to him save for simple factual corrections of inaccuracies. If people had a problem with the last, sorry, but I'd do that for anyone here...and if you think about it, you'll realize that I've never complained about being accurately corrected when I've made factual errors. There's also my years old open question to Bob; What exactly do you want to have happen from all this? It's been a one-sided vendetta for years; it's the one side's fault, and was up to him to stop it. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Part 4: Commentary by Old-Timers Backing My Version of OM's History ------------------------------ From: [lf 7 z] at [ellis.uchicago.edu] (The Doctor is Glenn) Date: Tue, 12 Apr 1994 19:03:36 GMT In article <2oau9o$[5 l 8] at [agate.berkeley.edu]> [g--df--b] at [ocf.berkeley.edu] (David Goldfarb) writes: >Omega Man #1 @15036 <[1 15036] at [wwivgate.ksub.icus.com]> wrote: >)The reason I ask this has a lot to do with the E-Mail I've been getting from >)your account these past couple of weeks. ... > [I won't dignify the rest by quoting it.] > Dear me. Now I have a taste of how Tom feels. > > Friends, I hope that I don't need to say this to very many of >you, but absolutely none of what Bob wrote below the line I've quoted >is true. Out of fairness, I feel obliged to point out the possibility >that persons unknown to me are, for reasons unknown to me, forging mail >from my account. Given Bob's past history, though, I think it much more >likely that he is lying through his teeth. Like, there are members of our beloved group *still* silly enough to swallow the man's crap? God, I hope not, it doesn't come any further divorced from credibility than his latest fantasy. :( For good or ill, he pulls these stunts often enough that newcomers should clue in soon enough. I'd forward it to the proper authority, but he goes through accounts faster than Popeye and his cans of spinach, seems rather pointless. Someone should set up a chron job to just forward the archive to the sys admin du jour. :( For the record, David's a long-time netter of more than even temper, who shouldn't need to defend himself from fairy tales. Please ignore the latest groundless slander from the usual suspect. Pax ex machina, Glenn ------------------------------ Article 73418 of rec.arts.comics.misc: From: [lf 7 z] at [ellis.uchicago.edu] (A Small Glenn in Germany) Subject: Re: Bob Mosley spouts off again (was Re: Hal Jordan-Hero and Man) Date: Fri, 15 Apr 1994 22:06:54 GMT In article <[84 cwwcp 520] at [outlet.ksub.icus.com]> [1 15036] at [wwivgate.ksub.icus.com] (Omega Man #1 @15036) writes: >3) Keep in mind that my "past history" is all based on Galloway-produced >mythos and net.god-induced bandwagon sycophantic rantings. Oh come on, you've done a fine job on your rep all by your lonesome. You got your enemies the old-fashioned way, you earned them. I guess Chuq, Karen and David and the myriad others don't count, we're all just bandwagon dupes, eh? Irrelevant in any case, you can't blame your present behavior on anyone but yourself. ------------------------------ From: [r--d] at [image.Kodak.COM] (James Reid) Subject: Re: Bob Mosley spouts off again (was Re: Hal Jordan-Hero and Man) Date: Fri, 15 Apr 94 12:39:28 GMT [1 15036] at [wwivgate.ksub.icus.com] (Omega Man #1 @15036) said: * 3) Keep in mind that my "past history" is all based on Galloway-produced * mythos and net.god-induced bandwagon sycophantic rantings. Nope. Some of us have been around since you first appeared on the scene. You are a jerk, plain and simple. * I'm simply someone who refuses to bow and kowtow to someone whose ego is * bigger than they're entitled to. I don't care if tyg has a big ego (I'm not saying he does). He's polite, he's civilized, and he contributes *positively* to this newsgroup more than anyone the past 5 years or so (maybe longer). ------------------------------ From: [s c s] at [garnet.msen.com] (Steve Simmons) Subject: Re: Bob Mosley spouts off again (was Re: Hal Jordan-Hero and Man) Date: 17 Apr 1994 22:03:25 -0400 [1 15036] at [wwivgate.ksub.icus.com] (Omega Man #1 @15036) writes: >3) Keep in mind that my "past history" is all based on > Galloway-produced mythos and net.god-induced bandwagon sycophantic > rantings. For the record, I ain't no net.god and don't go in as anyone's sycophant. But I've been in this neck of the world for nearly a decade, and have had more than enough time to judge people by their actions, not what others say about them. I did see a number of the incidents OM refers to as "past history" on my own, not second- or third-hand from any party. I don't usually comment, as it was ugly all around and I didn't bother saving the articles. Mosleys reputation with me has been created entirely by his own actions. Tom can be cranky sometimes, and Mosley has sometimes been the target of that crankiness. But Mosley's deserved every bit blasted his way, and more. I believe that people do change over time. Every so often, I remove OM from the killfile. It usually takes about a month before he's back in. For now, he's staying in. ------------------------------ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Part 5: Bob's Latest Spew of Lies Now, for the last time, let me address Bob's latest spew of lies. >>>Of course, that's his opinion, and it carries no more weight than >>>anyone else's when you get down to brass tacks.... >>Wrong. That's *your* opinion. >...Oh really? Then you believe your opinion carries more weight than >anyone else? And you claim you don't have an ego, dolt. Bob's always been good at non sequiturs. In this case, he previously spewed out this fantasy of my motivations for rac-rfd and claimed that it was my opinion. Good trick, since I'd never written anything remotely resembling it, nor was it my opinion. It was Bob's opinion of what he imagined my opinion to be. So, yes, I would say that what my motivations actually are carries considerable more weight than Bob's fantasies about them. >...And you deserved every damn bit of it, IMHO. Had you not been such >an utter shit when I first arrived, then things probably would have Another common OM tactic; it's all my fault for being mean to him when he showed up. Well, let's look at what actually happened, something that's been backed up by, oh, every single person who was on the net at the time who's ever posted about it. See above for a few examples. OM came on the net in pretty much the same way that RobRaza did. Pretty much any thread he was involved in quickly degenerated to his spewing personal insults and flames at others. In particular, he took being corrected when he was wrong about comics trivia or when the information he claimed was from "an inside comics industry source who cannot be named" turned out to be inaccurate (leading to widespread suspicion that said source existed only in Bob's keyboard). Several people, including Chuq but not myself, announced they were dropping him into a killfile. If people treated OM like shit when he arrived, it was due to his behavior completely justifying his being treated with as little respect as he had for others. At this point, it's hard to tell if Bob's mind has rewritten history to conform to his delusions, or if he just figures that few enough people are left from then to allow him more doubt on the part of relative newbies. >been different. You don't own rac* OR usenet, Tom. Your delusions in >this regard have caused you to chase people off of here. This has been Name one person who I have "chased off of here". You, on the other hand, are directly responsible for chasing off a respected poster, namely one Chuq von Rospach. Or, as Dan'l Denehey-Oakes once put it: "OM thinks that tyg and Chuq rule the BWAHAHAHA net and are out to do dirt to him. The fact that they haven't caused him to disappear from the net indicates that they're doing a remarkably poor job of it." >going on for all the years I've been here. Those who didn't agree with >your views were run off with your bullshit, and I simply am not going >to be one of your victims. Wow. Textbook case of paralogia 101. For nine years, Bob has been flaming and harrassing me, often in literally every post he made. But somehow I'm the one attempting to run him off the net and he is *my* victim? >>This is right up with one of OM's old bits, back when Chuq was still here. >...Still blaming me for running him off, eh? To be totally honest, I >wish he -was- still here. At least -he- had the balls to end the feud >on acceptable terms. Unlike your chickenshit self. > >Oh, and drop that scam about Chuq's mutual exchange of apologies being >a joke on his part. He meant it, and as far as I'm concerned that feud >ended over five years ago now. Then again, I guess being a true friend >of Chuq's, that gives you the right to try and sabotage that peace, >huh? I forwarded this to Chuq; here's his response: ---------------------------------------------------------------------- :Omega continues to live in his own version of reality. He's more than :welcome to it. My biggest wish is that the damn thing (and Omega in :general) would quit bumping his reality into mind. I don't want to win :the fight. I don't want to fight the fight. I don't want justice -- I :want quiet. : :And Omega's god-damned fixation on all this crap won't even give me :that. He can go to hell, and you can quote me. I'm real tired of his :constantly dragging this crap up and forcing people to revisit things :that 99.99999999% of the universe not only doesn't care about, but :would prefer to not remember. : :Please feel free to include this in your rebuttal. Happily -- and :Omega, when you read this, after you quit spluttering in indignation, :please: go suck on a light socket. Don't bother sending me email, I'll :just forward it to your postmaster asking him to ask you to not harass :me. I'm tired of this crap. I have a life. I wish you wouldn't keep :trying to create one for yourself out of mine. : :You successfully convinced me to leave the comics groups. I gave you :that much, because your attitude and whining weren't worth fighting any :more. All I want is quiet. Do me a favor. Never utter my name again. To :anyone. I've done that for you for years. : :Is that too much to ask? : :Evidently. : :Chuq : :(p.s. I'll bet he can't leave this alone. It'll just be more of the :same, but what the hell. He's going to slime me whether or not I react, :because I've found not reacting doesn't work, so I might as well say :what I think. Maybe it'll shock him into leaving me alone. But I doubt :it. Some people just can't grow up and live the present. I figured he'd :have learned that this was long done and past years ago, but I guess :not. Jeez. : :Hint: Omega: get a life. If you're still thinking about this crap, you :don't have one. I hear Goodwill has a sale on them this weekend....) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >...Let's face it, Tom - the two of you were bolstering each other's >attacks in such a matter that you -had- to be sleeping together. >Either that, or sharing the same fucking VT-52 cubicle at the local >comp center. Ergo, in an era where homophobia was still an accepted >practice, it was a natural tactic. Let me get this straight; two people who share an opinion about something have to be sleeping together. Or sharing a computer (despite that fact that during most of this time, I was in Switzerland or Michigan and Chuq was in Silicon Valley. And at the beginning, he and I were still at least 450 miles apart). Uh huh. And words fail me about his last sentence. By that logic, OM should also be refering to me as a Jew-lover since I've been romantically involved with several jews. Also as a supporter of miscengenation, since I strongly supported my white sister's marriage to a black man and adore the niece who came out of that union. Of course, none of these are a) wrong b) considered particularly valid tactics by anyone with a brain or, and most importantly c) at all relevant to anything I post here about comics. That's a key point btw. Bob just can't bring himself to limit his comments about either comments or what I post. Nope, he just has to try to drag in as many gratuitous personal insults as he can manage. If anything sets apart his actions from my occasional reactions, it's that I limit myself to what Bob's actually done and what's relevant. >Hey, you were a debater, Tom. This is called mudslinging. Deal. Ah, yes, a commonly accepted strategy in formal debate; personal insult of one's opponent. Usually indicating that one knows that one's arguments don't have a leg to stand on. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >...This is the "Karen Williams" incedent, where I reposted an E-Mail >from Karen that begged me to apologize to Tom and Chuq, beg their >forgiveness, or they'd run me off of Usenet like they'd done to >several others. Karen -denied- this came from her despite the fact >that the headers said otherwise, and to this day Tom has claimed it >was a forgery. I, on the other hand, use this as proof of certain >claims regarding Tom's bullying tactics on the net. > >Tom, for the record, she sent it, and she perjured herself in public >to avoid your wrath. Again, admit the goddamn truth for once and >deal. Well, I sent this off to Karen. Her response was: "Yes I sent him email asking him to not be so deliberately rude, and that he was misunderstanding your intentions. He completely distorted the meaning of my message (I suppose I shouldn't be surprised), and I have chosen to ignore him." ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >>Right. Nine years of nigh continuous harrassment. One-sided at that. >>OM has never been a victim in this whole scenario. He sure likes to >>claim he is though. >...Again, you deserved every iota of it. Live with it. Note that here Bob admits his nine years of harrassment. His defense is that I "deserved every iota of it". He doesn't say why though. His current defense seems to be a combination of being pissed that he was treated like the jerk he portrayed himself as when he started posted with a high minded lone freedom fighter persona, the last bastion of liberty preventing me from taking over r.a.c....despite no one else seeming to share this attitude. One could almost think he and Steve Boursy and Grubor were sharing notes. Come on Bob, try stating, oh, four specific actions that I've done that justify nine years of harrassment by you. No generalities. Just four specific actions that justify your behavior. >...I'm hearing a lot of conflicting stories. The majority of the dates >go back only two years, so I'll take that as the accepted start. Ergo, >stuff it. Ergo, you're not bothering to even attempt to find out the correct answer and so are going with the one most favorable to you. If anyone cares to verify that it's been over a decade since voters and their votes were publically posted in CFV results posts, I suggest posting a question about it in news.groups. Btw, while cleaning out some directories this weekend, I happened upon the post I made about the results of moving discussion of Malibu books from rac.misc to rac.marvel.universe/xbooks. Guess what? That post also listed all the voters' names, addresses, and votes. As I recall, there was no response at all to my having done that last fall. >...It's more like trust you or else, Tom. Of course, I don't go around >saying "this is the way rac* works, because *I* said so!" either. Neither do I. I do say that this is the way Usenet works because long established for good reason netiquette, charter, and Usenet rules say it does. >...Oh go fuck yourself, Tom. When I came in, I offered opinions on the >topics at hand. You and Chuq went out of your way to denounce my >opinions, then followed up those denouments with threats against my >account. I retaliated accordingly. Said opinions laced with massive personal insults for anyone who disagreed with 'em. Once again, for relative newbies, think RobRaza here. As for threats against his account, well, back in 1987 when Usenet was essentially only at universities or companies doing research (I don't believe there was such a thing as a commercial ISP at the time, although the World might have been in its start up stages), the accepted way to deal with someone making an ass of themselves and repeatedly and deliberately disrupting a group was to drop mail to the postmaster at their home machine pointing out the problem. They'd then take a look at the situation, and if they agreed that the user was a jerk, they'd take some action ranging from talking to them, to putting them on probation, to yanking their account. If they thought the complainer was being a jerk, they'd do nothing. Back when one could make the reasonable assumption that sysadmins were reasonable people, this worked fine. It's not for a number of years now. I honestly don't recall if I sent email to Bob's postmaster. I may have, as he was in the RobRaza class of general jerks. Or I may have when he threatened physical violence. I personally don't have a problem with having done either if I did. However, I'll note that until the era of widespread commercial ISPs, Bob's gone through a *lot* of accounts, including for a while a FIDOnet account, which at the time was pretty much the court of last resort in terms of being on Usenet (once again, we're talking pre-ISPs). When he was investigated after the death threat, people in Austin unanimously stated that Bob'd managed to get himself kicked off just about every system in the Austin area. >Since then, I've tried on three separate occasions to deal peace with >you. All three times I've been spat upon. The third time I vowed never to go >that route again. There's no peace with you so long as your cowardly ass is >hiding behind a modem, wanking off all over the keyboard. Oh, do give specifics. These times don't exist. However, I've repeatedly stated that if you ever just knock off the insults and harrassment and stick to comics, there'd be no problem since, unlike you, I have never gratuitously flamed you. I'll freely admit to being peeved when having to do my every so often response to your spew, but see Joe's post about that. >gutless sham artist hiding behind a terminal. Someone with guts >wouldn't have visited Austin back in '89 in a disguise the way you >did, you coward. This was an incident when I was in Austin, Bob's home turf, for a conference. Sensibly, given that it was after his death threat, I didn't post about where I'd be. I did phone up Bob, giving a false name, to try an find out what the source of his problems were. At one point, I mentioned that he sure seemed to get into a lot of flames. His response was that he did so "because I'm bored". As for his accusation of cowardice, let's see; I'm dealing with someone who has threatened physical violence towards me with a bat and gun. I'm on their home turf. Yeah, right. I'm sure that everyone here's action would be to call up the threatener and tell them they're in town, using their real name. >doing everything I can to better rac*, and make it a more amiable >place for everyone. The time spent doing that will be far better spent >than wasting it on a anal-retentive misanthropic jackoff like you. That would be shutting up. Inadvertantly, he probably will (see post #4 in this series). But if not for the action I'm taking, I'd expect him to come back to it like he always has. After nine years, you stop believing that he'll ever quit. And, in fact, he's already broken this, during the time I was working on these posts. Finally, since Bob likes to comment on how Chuq apologized to him, here's the text of said "apology". Only Bob could possibly take it seriously. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: [c--q] at [Apple.COM] (Chuq Von Rospach) Date: 18 Sep 92 17:43:11 GMT >I do not intend to capitulate. Maybe if the world is blown up in nuclear holocaust, but I have this vision of a giant, post-holocaust cockroach sitting on top of a piece of rubble screaming "Chuq! Tom! You're not getting out of it THIS EASY!" Omega: I apologize. I apologize that I was stupid enough to try to teach you how to not fart in front of your peers so they wouldn't snicker at you every time you popped your face up in public. You're right. You have the priviledge of acting any way you want, and I shouldn't have tried to make you conform to things like manners or common sense. I apologize for all the years of abuse and scorn you're suffered, especially those years where I wasn't even reading the newsgroup, because it was obviously a conspiracy by myself to keep people from liking you and treating you as you so richly deserve. I hereby confess to the conspiracy, although I hope someone tells me who my conspirators were someday. I most sincerely apologize for the years of mental abuse you've suffered. It's clear to me that the early days of your tenure on rec.arts.comics have affected you greatly, because why else would you still try to keep this farce alive long after everyone else involved is dead? If I'd known it was going to unhinge you so severely, I would have handled it differently. I apologize to you for every wrong I've ever committed on you, real or imagined, and also apologize for every wrong I ever will commit on you, including this posting. I was wrong. I am wrong. I will be wrong. Hell, my new name is wrong, and I apologize for that, too. I apologize for existing. Since simply leaving your presence and giving you complete control of rec.arts.comics wasn't enough, clearly it's the fact that I didn't kill myself that's bothering you. The simple fact of my existence seems to be a blister on your bum, and for that I apologize, but I'm rather fond of breathing and you'll just have to learn to cope with the fact that I'm here. One would think that having me get the hell off the net was enough, anyway. I apologize for apologizing, just for the hell of it. And I apologize for all the things I forgot to apologize for. I apologize for not apologizing sincerely enough. I apologize for not sending you money, drugs or little boys as a bribe to get you to accept this apology. I apologize for not flying out to your house to make it easier for you to brain me with your baseball bat. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- tyg [t--g] at [netcom.com] .