Subject:
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Re: The Friendliest Site On The Internet. (Was Re: A little self examination?)
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Mon, 23 Oct 2000 20:14:19 GMT
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Viewed:
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481 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Paul Baulch writes:
> Larry Pieniazek wrote in message ...
> > Plus, I already tried it your way, a year ago. I know that I myself knew
> > what to expect from the thread, unless MM had changed his ways from the Mad
> > Hatter scansite incident, there was going to be a lot of nastiness from him
> > and a lot of circular reasoning, factual errors, deliberate misstatements,
> > inappropriate amplifications, etc. He hadn't changed, and all that came to
> > pass. That's why I urged ignoring.
>
> And kept it to yourself? That's a real shame. If' I'd made the connection, I
> would have used it constructively, to help persuade Matthew not to repeat
> his past mistakes, instead of sitting and letting someone else discover it
> and use it in a small-minded, destructive way (which they did with bells
> on).
Lemme interject something here. :-) Matthew didn't make any mistakes -- at
least not in the usual social faux-pas sense. I've been speaking a little bit
with him offline in email since Saturday and he considers himself a "Social
Engineer" hacker. If I understand his goals and intentions correctly, he
specifically set out to cause a disruption or, more accurately, to make
himself into a mirror with which to show people a side of themselves that
they didn't want to see, with disruption as the side-effect which proves his
points in his mind. I'm not trying to judge these goals as being noble or
ignoble, just to understand them as best I can. Thus, it would do absolutely
no good to try to persuade him not to repeat his past mistakes, because in his
mind there were no mistakes -- only in our minds were there "mistakes." He
mentioned a couple of other online communities he is helping (that was his
word), one them being some vampire community. It would be interesting to
have a few beers with MM someday and trade philosophies on life and sociology.
> I have already explained more than once now that my friendliness towards
> Matthew _did_ work . His apology, flawed as it may have been, was _not_ a
> coincidence. I explained to him that it was the only, both publicly and in
> private correspondence (in which he was, I might add, completely
> reasonable). Matthew was _not_ beyond help.
I don't think he wants help or needs help. He seems to be a very intelligent
person who knows what he is doing and does it very well (meaning I gather
that he achieves his objectives). Unfortunately, the "social engineering"
he does isn't something which sits well here (or in RTL, for that matter).
> There's the flaw, Larry - "irretrievably". I was friendly to Matthew even
> while telling him his error and giving him the proper advice, and _never_
> did he even once "spit in my face". He responded to be with friendliness,
> regrets, even reason! Can you believe that! Amazing but true. I mean, who
> would have thought this unhelpable monster would respond to being treated
> nicely? He was _not_ beyond help.
I have found him to be extremely polite, intelligent, and logical in private
emails as well. The thing to remember is that he was here for a completely
different reason than the rest of us (at least during the SE phase -- I can't
say about the LEGO-building phase).
If he wanted to turn off the SE, I'm sure he could do so at will and could
play just as nicely as he did from April up until last week.
> Actually, in all my huffing and puffing that's exactly what I'm trying to
> do - I think we could make more of an effort to see how we can help problem
> individuals, and therefore be equipped to help them rather than simply
> ignore/banish them! I see it as part of being "the friendliest place on the
> Internet".
He's not a "problem individual" to be helped or reformed -- he's playing a
different game -- a higher level, meta-game outside the normal rules. I'm
not defending his actions, just stating that I believe help is irrelevant in
this case.
--Todd
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