[This was John railing agains a particularly idiotic twerp in March.
Beautiful, isn't it?  You may link to this text if you like, but do not
alter it in any way or keep a seperate copy of it for yourself.  Thanks. 
--Skwid]

[The entity known as Student wrote:]
>it is quite amusing, actually. it seems i am writing to a people who are
>set in their own ways as much as aes sedai, with inflated hypocritical
>self selusions of grandeur and proffesionalism in the field of randland
>observations, who have little idea of the original defintion of a
>newsgroup.

<Snap>

Ooh, listen.  That was the sound of my patience snapping like a dry
twig.  Here's a free clue, kid, the first of many that will be heaped
on you in this little tirade:  

Don't _ever_ presume to pontificate on the original definition of a
newsgroup when you are in the presence of people who were around in
the murkiest old days of Usenet.  I have little doubt that you are in
the electronic presence of people whose opinions were flotaing across
the wires before your father made that tragic, wet, sticky mistake
with your mother.  In any event, you are clearly _not_ equipped to
deliver the lecture, and many people here are capable of taking your
lecture notes and grafting them non-surgically into cavities you would
most likely prefer left alone.

I imagine you think you're unique, in some fashion or another.  I
imagine you think you have a point that is new, and fresh, and
interesting, and that has not been presented in one form or another.
I imagine you're wrong.

There's really only two or three broad outlines for your behavior, and
whichever the case may actually be, you're just plain wrong.

You could just be a particularly persistent troll.  It wouldn't
surprise me, since you seem to go to great lengths to disguise your
actual identity; just for shits and giggles, I actually tried to
respond to one of your decoherent mail messages.  It failed rather
predictably.  It certainly wouldn't be the first time some cum gulping
gutter slut wandered in here looking for atention, so to speak.  It
won't be the last.  It holds a certain novelty for a few-- the
younger, less worldly set, mostly.  But trust me, it's nothing new,
and like crack whores in the district, you really are a dime a dozen.

What would your point be, really?  That you can piss people off?
Kiddo, anyone can piss people off.  It's not like you've wandered into
an enclave known for peace, love and harmony.  It's not like you're
getting up in the Buddha's face, leaning in close and yelling, "I'm
not looking at you!  I'm not touching you!" during his meditations.
You're wandering into a newsgroup trying to piss people off.  Ooh.
Wha a challenge.  What a unique concept.

You could just be some ten year old kid, scooting in here because
whatever negligent thing managed to spawn you and give you suck for
the last decade or so routinely brings you into an ill-configured,
unsecured computer lab, and then turns its back whilst you run around
shrieking like a silicon banshee.  But, like one of Shakespeare's less
gifted simians, doomed to spend eternity producing vaguely English
prose by clenching your unclean asscheeks around a particularly
unfortunate-- and likely sinless-- keyboard, you are nothing special.
You are a statistical anomaly, and a rather annoying one, but hardly
unique, much less inherently meaningful.

Finally, of course-- and for this particular slice of space-time, this
heads my list-- you might _actually be_ as stupid as you have made
yourself to look.  Hard to believe, but again, I've seen a lot of shit
in my time.  I'm sure, if I were to go through the qualification
process (actually, I could probably be grandfathered in) I could get
myself credentials proclaiming me an expert on your particular brand
of shit in no time, flat.  And once again, you're nothing special.  If
there's anything Usenet has a rampant trade surplus on, it's shit.

Of course, it could be some linear combination o these three factors.
Could even be something that hasn't crossed my mind.  But I kinda
doubt it, so I'm going to proceed, for the moment, on assumption
three-- namely, that you are in fact as mind-numbingly,
soul-freezingly, insultingly stupid as you have been acting.  

And I will, out of the charity of my heart, try to explain to you in
language and idioms that even you can understand, just exactly what
you're doing wrong, and what steps you might take if you want to be
treated with some glimmer of respect and hold an intelligent
conversation, instead of just have people slap you around.

First, identify why people are pissed off at you.  Can't figure it
out?  I'll give you some help.  Imagine you're throwing a party, or
just having a bunch of friends over to your place, and are trying to
engage in some form of communication.  Now imagine a syphlitic
autistic babboon with a bad case of diarrhea and a bad attitude
crashes your party.  You would probably be annoyed, yes?

You are that babboon.
Understand?

You have your thumb stuck so far up your ass, you've got grey matter
under the thumbnail.
Understand?

For someone trying to take the rest of us to task for the original
definition of a newsgroup, as you put it, your lack of understanding
of the concepts involved are breathtaking.  I've heard of divine
revelation, but I've never before witnessed what must surely be a
lack of wisdom so profound as to be inspired by some higher power.
Until now.  

The purpose of Usenet is to _communicate_.  No matter how avante garde
you may think your own little cultural backwater is, communication
implies rules.  In this case, it implies grammer, and punctuation,
and capitalization.  It implies quoting text, and leaving in
attributions, and snipping signatures and unneeded text.  And it
implies organizing your posts well enough that people can follow them
with minimal effort, not this stream of consciousless nonsense you've
been spraying.  I don't care how much bullshit you sling at the
screen, you ain't Jackson Pollock, and this ain't art.

Perfection, of course, is not required.  But effort is.  Believe me,
in the little piss puddle that is Usenet, you are _not_ important
enough that people are going to spend any effort deciphering your
idiocies, once the novelty of knocking you around wears off.

Your second mistake, of course, was thinking that arguing this point
holds novelty for anyone but you.  I may be older and wearier than
most about this point, but I assure you, the majority of the crowd has
seen you come and go at least twice.  Some, a dozen.  Some, a
hundred.  For me, you've blurred so far into the background noise
that by the time the next little fucktowel with an attitude crashes
the wrong way through the revolving door, I won't even remember your
name.  So to speak.  

Thirdly, you really haven't said anything new or particularly
interesting.  Other than a dismal lack of comprehension an attitude
wholly out of proportion with your worth, you bring nothing of value
except a brief moment of target practice, as it were.  The number of
worthwhile ideas you have presented can be counted on the thumbs of
one foot. 

Enough people have pontificated on the ugliness of your views toward
homosexuals that I don't feel the need to comment in depth, here.

If you _really_ want to hang around here and have some discussions, by
all means do so.  But do so like an adult-- with a certain respect for
yourself, your fellow posters, your language, and the local
conventions.  And for fuck's sake, drop this [bogus address removed --ed]
horseshit-- few of us here will hold any respect for someone
anonymous, to whom we cannot respond by mail should we so desire. 

Eventually, if you do this, people will stop beating up on you, and
may eventually treat you with respect.  If you earn it.  Starting with
the standard capital sum of zero, however, you've dug yourself an
impressive pit in just a few days.  This _will_ take a while.

Otherwise, just to save you the suspense, I'll tell you how the rest
of this little psychodrama will play itself out.  It ends with one or
the other party getting bored.  I give you, personally, about five to
eight more days, tops.  I figure in three or four more days, enough
people will have put you in their killfiles that the feedback path
will have dropped below unity gain.  You'll lose momentum, you'll lose
attention, and a few days after that, your effective tenure as Biggest
Fuckwit In Town will be history.

So if, as I suspect, you really want to go this route, save us all
the trouble and just pretend we've already shoved the cherry bombs up
your ass and detonated them.

-- 
John S. Novak, III           [e-mail address masticated --ed]
The Humblest Man on the Net

[After quoting Novak's _Entire_ message, Student was graceful enough to
reply like so:]

oh humblest man, your critique has been recieved, i take it most
seriously as a sign of the dishonour which has fallen upon my virtual
user name. i must untarnish such slime which has apparently rubbed off
onto me since arriving here. you are right. i am just a little kid who
sneaked into the university network and is using it for the sole purpose
of personal attention. 
and i am afraid i cannot quote as everyone else does, you see, it goes
against my personal beliefs: i find it disgusting the way wayward and
unintelligent children try to cover their lack of any grace and style by
trying to disguise their inabilty with a few quotes. it reminds me of
someone with bad body odour trying to disquise it with cologne - instead
it creates an even worse smell, some of which appears to have rubbed
onto me. or is it my fresh originality is a threat to their little shit
hole, like a beetle who thinks his slime is the universe.
i have been hiding myself? i have on no less than three occasions given
my e-mail address to various users who have asked politely - you know,
with courtesy, something a humble man should, but apparently does not
know. if you connot find it ( and i am sure i told either you or dilick)
it is [address removed --ed]
and i doubt anybody would be able to manhandle me. ask any of the sydney
siders to e-mail me so we can arrange a meeting, for a chance to
"surgically graft" anything to my body cavities. does anyone of you
actually have the intelligence to realise where the body cavities are?
and people will stop beating me if i stop? stop what? and why would i
want your respect?  i would rather have the respect of padan fain's
newly excreted shit. and whi is it that i am "seeking attention"? do my
views require that i have to be thought of as an attention seeker?  if
you do not like my views, then don't respond. simply ignore anything
labelled student. is that too hard? or do you have to read everypost of
mine to determine whether it really was me who wrote it?
and i haven't said anything new? why don't you reread your own posts, or
the majority of everyone elses? it seems that this is more a casual
newsgroup about nothing than one which is suposedly dedicated to the
writings of robert jordan. at least i have been speaking about the wheel
of time, not about bill gates, or the weather, or who can fart the
loudest.
i thought you were supposedly humble? "it holds a certain novelty for a
few--the younger, less worldly set, mostly" you must be right. i have a
poor vocabulary and no intelligence whatsoever. can you believe that i
actually thought that being humble meant not being proud of your own
achievements (what little they are, however)!
the biggest fuckwit in history? my my, such language. i had thought that
the dilapidated geezers such as yourself would frown on such. i also
thought that the nettique of the newsgroup would find it unseemly. the
biggest you say? wow, i had never imagined that i could overtake you. i
am honoured.
i have blurred for you? i think it is best you see an optometrist. at
your age it is quite common to have cataracts. you might also go to a
cardiologists to check your heart. it must be on the verge of collapse
from you exertions of writing. and while you're at it, stop by the a
neurologists, you might need to have a few defective parts replaced. an
autistic baboon may be able to spare you the parts to improve. oh yeah,
this is supposed to be a party? my apologies, i thought this was meant
to be a discussion of the wheel of time series. so if you have nothing
to contribute, maybe you should take your party elsewhere, for you would
serve no purpose here other than perhaps some memoribilia of the past.
and if i am not important enough for people to "decipher my idiocies"
then there should be no people offended by my views.
have a think about that, and next time, if you persist in meddling with
my views, take time to give a little thought to what you right. have a
nice day.
j/s/s


[At this point I'd like to take a little poll.  Whose opinions do you
respect more?  Send me mail at skwid@utdallas.edu with the verdict.]