Too Much To Dream

It's been a truism as long as I've been online that women always get attacked more often and more viciously. Some of the attackers try to explain it away as women over-reacting to what a guy would just brush off, but that's just more of the same misogyny that fuels the attacks in the first place. And it really doesn't matter what the topic is, either. It's bizarre, but always the same. I think I'll avoid pop-psyching these people by ending with just the observational part.

I don't really want to know what goes on in the swampy morass they call their minds either.

I'm with you on this one - although you had a go at me a while ago for suggesting you were being too hard on someone it is your site and you can choose to rude or nice to whomever you want in their own house. If they don't like it they can always remember to close the door on the way out.

Debate is one thing, being rude or insulting is another. When used properly comments can be the best part of the blog. Some people just have no manners in other people's houses.

I was going to post an acknowledgement that Andrea may very well have a valid point here. I'm not sure that her being a woman did not, in fact, play some part in my choosing to criticize her as I did.

I've certainly offered plenty of similar criticisms of men in the past, but usually I don't bother these days. Life's too short, and all that. If it were true that I had, in fact, singled her out for a response in part because of her gender, that would be a valid criticism on her part, one I would have been prepared to discuss, with a view to (hopefully) learning not to be quite so malely chauvinistically piggy in the future. I would also have offered her my sincere apologies.

After I decided to post to that effect, though, I noticed that over in the original thread she has suggested that I stay off her web site. In light of that, and in keeping with my newfound sensitivity to her rights as a woman to be free from interactions with suspected misogynists like me, I will not, in fact, be posting the above.

You did not see me. I was not here. :-)

But to the extent that you were correct about my criticizing you because are a woman, Andrea, I'm sorry.

Just to clarify my position, John, I was making a general observation re all my trolls, not just you. I wasn't intending to single you out per se, though you were the last person to comment in such a way as to come under my definition of "troll." In any case, apology accepted.

Thanks for having me over to the "house" occasionally, Andrea. I'm the quiet guy over there in the corner. I just like to sit back and watch 'cause there is almost always something interesting happening here.

Oh please. House analogy no cutta the mustard. You don't physically live here, raise a family here, pay rent here, wash your socks here, or take respite from the world here. You chose to set up a public space with a fully active comments section. Except when you don't like some comments, whose authors are branded "trolls". [BTW, argument paraphrased from a "troll" you have locked out of your "house".]

What I found nailed to another locked door:
"The discussion has reached that point of going nowhere, I do think, that warrants this action."

translation: "The discussion has reached that point where too many people have backed me into a corner I don't want to be in any longer."

or: "This forum is open to all, subject of course to windows getting closed on fingers, getting banned, getting your phone number published so as to enable harassment, or other ham-handed techniques to satisfy my raging ego."

or: "It's my bloggy and I'll defy if I want to."

It's getting really tiresome in here. Not to mention creepy.

Perry,

A couple of comments on your comment:

1. If it's creepy or tiresome, feel free to frequent another blog (preferably not mine).

2. My Mrs. and I once posted what amounted to the same blog on our respective websites. She got attacked by several assholes in her Comments section, I got nary a peep in the email (I refuse to have a live Comments section).

Chick bloggers seem to get attacked more frequently and more viciously, and Andrea is right, it seems to come from men, and most especially, from liberals. As a result, I can't blame them for being more touchy about this shit, and banning / deleting assholes as they see fit.

Another thing to remember: all arguments reach resolution at some point -- whether in compromise, or in impasse. The ones which don't are just exercises in sophistry.

Finally, blog hosts can, with all the justification in the world, get sick of arguing over minutiae and obscurities and terminate the thread. In that respect, it's no different in real life -- so why should they be judged by a different standard?

I get suspicious of the endless debaters -- I've seldom seen anything other than fanaticism at the end of the tactic.

And I notice that "perry," you don't seem to have a blog, or at least include a link to one. So your opinions mean -- what, exactly? Besides the fact that they reveal you to be a nasty piece of work, that is.

Oops -- did that hurt your feewings? So sowwy, you poor wittle thing. Now sod off.

Now I'm almost tempted to add comments to my blog to test this theory.

But I already agree with it. I find that the bloggers who simply will NOT let go of an argument with me all happen to be male. Talk about your sulky boys. And I thought I could carry a grudge....

I find your assertions of the categorical abusiveness of men toward women to be rather arbitrary, and very inconsistent with my experiences. The only gender-consistent behaviours that I've noticed on the net have leaned more toward undersocialized male geeks who have a tendency to fawn over anything said by anyone purporting to be female.

Applying your questionable assertion to John Callendar's post seems even more baffling. With the sole exception that he used the term "she," I can't see anything in his message which alludes to gender at all. And yet, even before making your generalized accusation that men tend to be abusive toward women, you've already starting calling him misogynist. Can you articulate what in his original messages struck you as so clearly woman-hating?

Okay Andrea, I'll buy your theory, but it still doesn't explain Atrios, DU or Freep, where 90%+ of the commenters appear to be trolls. Are they the secret troll breeding grounds, whence all trolls return to spawn? As a conservo-libertoid blogger, I like trolling a wee bit myself at Atrios, just to see what kind of overwrought hate emails it generates. I'm sadly polite in my trolling, albeit a bit sarcastic; that's usually enough to get the bile flowing.

BTW, bad form to publish the troll dude's address the other day. That's the same thing I'm pissed at Mac-Diva / Mac-a-Ron-ies / Silver Rights / The Blogger Otherwise Known as Election Rigger for. It smacks of a threat.

You can do so much better... perhaps a long stream of invective, or even a short one along the lines of what my friend Commando is wont to say: F*** you, you f***ing f***!", for instance.

Hey, passerby -- you need to read before you post. I already said I didn't intend to single out Mr. Callendar; if he was at all misogynist he isn't the worst I've had to deal with, not by a long shot. As for your denial of any gender-consistent behavior on the internet, I guess your experiences are different from those of myself and many other people who have commented here and written to me. Personally, I can only repeat that I have found that of all the people who have started fights here on my blog by far the ones that were most viscious and were the ones who refused to stop posting and go away when asked were a) male, and b) tended towards the liberal side of the spectrum. This is not to say that right-wing men, or women of any political persuasion, are not capable of nastiness -- merely that the people who have bothered me tend to be of a consistent sort. If you don't believe me, peruse this ancient (and closed) post wherein I offended some fans of Harold Pinter.

O-Bill: bad form? Please. As the owner of a domain name his information is publicly accessible -- as is mine, if you must know. You can find a domain-owner's info with a simple search using their url (unless they lied, which is against most registry-companies' rules). As a matter of fact I wasn't even sure it was his - anyone can claim to be anyone on the internet -- until he said so. He claimed that he had the perfect right to continue to post nasty comments on my blog that added nothing to the discussion going on -- unless you happen to think that calling me a "fucking bitch" in his very first comment to me ever was some sort of useful point.

As for comparing me to that Mac Diva person -- bite me. You know, you can quit reading my blog too, if that is the level of your understanding. I have more important things to do than to repeat myself ad nauseum for those who are too lazy or self-important to read what they are responding to.

Think I'll use my full name on this. I'm not sure that using one's full name in comments wouldn't lead to better manners.
I have noted that, although women certainly can be as hateful as men, most of the remarks in comment sections that, made in person, would lead to a buttkicking or worse seem to come from those who biologicly and chronologicly should be men. Instead they are something else, exactly what, I'm not sure.
I do consider myself an invited guest here, as such, there are standards of conduct. The hostess has gone through considerable trouble to prepare an intellectual 'meal'. I'm not required to like every course, nor am I obligated to clean my plate. If one particular dish is something that has always given me rampant gas it's my business to politely decline, not eat a double helping and then spend the rest of the evening alternately loudly farting and insulting the hostess for preparing the dish that others seemed to enjoy with no ill effects.
This does not mean that I should never express disagreement. I am , however, mindful of my obligations as a gentleman. I should state my points of disagreement, explain the reasons thereof and then allow for a response. If , after the respose, I still disagree I should express my argument to the points made in that response. More likely I might find myself agreeing to let the matter drop. There are simply some arguments that cannot be resolved due to entirely different outlooks.
Neither I nor Andrea are omniscient or omnipotent. Nor is any other mortal. The insistance that one is smarter than everyone else is the mark of a bully and a boor as is the use of ad hominem attacks when arguing. The somewhat anonymous nature of internet handles seems to invite this behavior.
I have no desire to become known, under any name, as a boor or bully.These seem to be more accurate terms than troll.

<applause>

I find the gender argument particularly shrill and without point. Nothing in my post or the surrounding discussion had anything to do with it, yet suddenly it became the focus. Maybe we should stick to ideas, not gender politics. I would respond the same way to what I've read here regardless of gender. But your best line yet is:

you don't seem to have a blog, or at least include a link to one. So your opinions mean -- what, exactly?

Oh, I see! A person's opinions are validated by their having a blog! Despite your recent claim that it doesn't matter one way or the other, and despite the venom you reserve for other bloggers. No, I don't need my opinions or the work I do validated by a blog because it beats talking to the teevee, here alone in my apartment with my cat. My work exists in the real world on its own terms, in exactly the same way it would without this new toy, the internet, that we all love to play with. Content still determines value.

Oh, pardon me ... FULL NAME, properly capitalized for your reading pleasure.

Uh -- Perry? I was talking to "passerby," not you, in reference to the gender stuff. Nor was I the one saying you should use your own full name. Monikers are fine with me. I had pointed out in one of the other comments to another person that there was no need to "sign" their posts as the name everyone fills out in the "name" field already appears at the bottom of their comments. Again -- I know this is difficult to accept -- having nothing to do with you or anything you said. As for the crack about you not having a blog -- you are quite within your prerogatives to disdain having your own personal blog to post your opinions on, but that doesn't mean you have the right to lecture me on what I should have in mind. If you find this site so "creepy" then, well, read something else. No one forced you to come here and drop your pellets of wisdom all over the place, nothing is keeping you from leaving. And perhaps you shouldn't have a blog -- you don't seem to have anything that interesting to say. Why don't you just shut down your pc and get off your ass and go out into that real world where you are so important? Trust me, you're nobody special here.

I find all this discussion about internet and weblog manners interesting, since Andrea herself has spouted some of the most hateful invective I've seen online against anyone who disagrees with her. Not a lot of "discussion" here.

I heartily agree that a weblog is someone's property/house/whatever, and they should be able to behave as they like, and require others to behave as they wish. But don't act so surprised if your churlish behavior is reflected back to you in the comments of people you've trashed.

"Andrea herself has spouted some of the most hateful invective I've seen online..."

You say that like it's a bad thing.

You have to admit, she does it courteously.

Again, you confuse "having something to say" with "having a blog". Andrea, you have no frickin' clue about me, so don't pretend to. I now laugh my way out of this nuthouse, to everyone's mutual benefit I'm sure...

Buh-bye. Don't let the cyber-door hit you on your virtual ass.