active_apathy

Right. So, as of Wednesday (the 27th), I'm going to be not-commenty-updatey for a few days. This is the reason for the book!purchasing. There are reasons, but they don't feel like being laid out here. So, if you don't hear from me for a few days, then I'm not dead. I'll update when I can.

Well... after Wednesday, that is. There's another entry to follow this one, and all of up until then. This is advance notice.

And now a quote from a mailing list I'm in, which has recently had theist!Trolls.

[Throwing things at people and saying "I know I'm not, but what about you?"] is one of the trademark behaviours of the common troll (Trollus Vulgaris), often seen lurking in the shadows of forums and mailing lists, waiting for the chance to strike with a post commonly referred to as 'flamebait'. These posts will contain pure nonsense, offensive or divisive views and ideas, poorly-conceived arguments fraught with fallacy, and sporadic innefectual insults. As the thread continues, the validity and coherence of the troll's argument wears gradually thinner, possibly exhausted in forging an army of strawmen and a hail of red herrings. As this continues, the presence of an actual argument or case with which opponents of the idea or viewpoint (now in its seventh or eighth different incarnation) can engage is severely limited until valid posters have no choice but to give up the mentally sapping process of arguing against patent piffle. At this point, civil folk take their tattered shreds of sanity and go to do something sensible, while the troll will merrily gloat about their victory as if they've won the entire Internet.

It is for this reason that many online forums, mailing lists, blogs, journals and other discussion spaces on the internet adopt the motto "nolite alere trollos" - don't feed the trolls.
-- Meeeeeeeee!