Subject:
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Mad Hatter and RTL (Was Re: Who documents rtl?)
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.general
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Date:
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Sat, 29 Jan 2000 04:44:47 GMT
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Viewed:
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1258 times
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Sproaticus wrote in message <388C8BED.3BCCF9F@io.com>...
> Gary Istok wrote:
> > I agree with Todd, it's why I left RTL in 1999. The Mad Hatter was the • final
> > straw.
>
> Man, now I gotta go back into deja.com and see how stupid someone had to be • to
> completely alienate someone as smart and creative as Gary.
Definitely, go to Deja-News and read the Mad Hatter thread. The poster known
as "Mad Hatter" was not stupid. Egotistical, certainly. Immature, without
doubt. Rude, obviously - and how. He was also a fan of the LEGO brick. Now,
I am not defending the actions of Mad Hatter on RTL. I am also most
definitely NOT Mad Hatter. I guess I just wanted to get this off my chest.
What I feel, personally, to be a certainty is that he was around 22 years of
age and had not yet developed the "social skills" (for want of a better
word) that most of us take for granted. He was at the age where intellectual
superiority must be achieved/maintained at the cost of absolutely everything
and everyone else. Why do have I drawn these conclusions about him?
Because, when I was 22, that's exactly what _I_ was like. Heck, I think I
even posted a couple of flames to RTL of all places, being disdainful of
others' creative efforts. Luckily I didn't really start a flame war.
Fortunately it's doubtful that anyone remembers any of that. More
fortunately, I have grown up a fair bit since then. Even then, though, I was
there because I was a fan of the LEGO brick.
When I read Mad Hatter's later posts, like many RTL users I felt an
emotional response. Like many RTL users I responded, in my own way. I don't
know whether anyone read my replies, certainly none of them were replied to.
I fretted, thinking that people might take my posts as a provocation to Mad
Hatter, but he never replied to them and I never intended him to. They were
meant to point out what I thought was going on in as simple and clear terms
as possible, because it seemed that RTL users were being baited into
arguments with him. Where they might have felt indignation or anger, though,
I felt only pity. I knew only too well about that hole he was in, I was once
in it myself. Ironically, it seems that most of my posts never made it off
my local news-server (at least, they're missing from Deja's version of the
thread).
Later, someone said something "intended only for worthy RTL users" (I
paraphrase) along the lines of "Mad Hatter's posts and the replies to
them.... were the stupidest thing they ever read on RTL". Ironically, I saw
this as just as stupid a statement as all the replies it apparently referred
to. This isn't strange, because that poster was doing just what all the
other "worthy RTL users" did with Mad Hatter: They got upset. They had an
emotional outburst. They were still decent RTL users and they didn't deserve
to be called "stupid". Franky, even now I'm fascinated by the thread. It
contains many useful lessons in how not to deal with difficult people.
Which leads into the most insightful, reasonable and compassionate post,
which was by Gary Istok himself. It's painfully ironic that Gary, then,
should mark that thread as what drove him from RTL. Gary, you explained Mad
Hatter better than all of us. Jeremy is right, you _are_ smart.
We drove Mad Hatter away (this neither pleases me nor disappoints me). I
would urge you to come back, Gary, but I fear that there is no point.
rec.toys.lego is not what it once was. It couldn't be, not after LUGNET.
Surely that's another reason you left.
I am giving up rec.toys.lego. More recently, there have been certain
off-topic cross-posts (i.e. spam) of an offensive nature (one was racist and
another seems to have been pornographic). Neither this sort of thing nor the
flamewars/profanity bother me[1]. I'm just sick of the overwhelming
proportion of market-related posts. IMO they should have made
rec.toys.lego.marketplace and I'm still baffled as to why they didn't.
Goodnight everyone,
Paul
[1] I have an open mind and I'm very proud of it. How open is _your_ mind?
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Message has 2 Replies:
 | | Re: Mad Hatter and RTL (Was Re: Who documents rtl?)
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| (...) Well, um, uh, gee, thanks Paul. The Mad Hatter was actually not the only reason I left RTL. Time was another consideration. I just didn't have enough time to do both RTL and LUGNET justice. I really did see the good in Mr. Hatter. I saw (...) (24 years ago, 31-Jan-00, to lugnet.general)
| | | Re: Mad Hatter and RTL (Was Re: Who documents rtl?)
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| In lugnet.general, Paul Baulch wrote: [snipped interesting analysis and color commentary of Mad Hatter bruhaha] I must have missed parts/most of the Mad Hatter thing. I don't think I did, but I must have. I feel the Mandroid mess was way worse than (...) (24 years ago, 31-Jan-00, to lugnet.general)
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