Wednesday, July 24, 2019

Slog Commenting Note

Sorry to Slog commenters, but I've reconfigured comments so you need a Google account to post (compensating some for the hurdle, I've also removed the Captcha...though Blogger may disregard that choice).

You may have noticed that we have a new troll here in Slogland. A very old acquaintance (to whom I've always been kindly supportive) had been posting anonymous snark and potshots, eventually growing so infuriated by my failure to courteously respect his anonymized snarky sock puppet that he flipped his gourd and went into embittered war mode. In his framing, he's bringing down The Man. In my framing, I cringe for him (no biggie, he knows I can expose him and his long-standing nom-de-flame to the Internet and to his employer if he escalates to actual threats).

I easily identified him, and would have preferred to preserve this as an outlet for him to blow off steam, but I don't want to repeat the pattern. So...if I know you, post as you, and I'll treat you like you. Simple! This new setting won't guarantee identity disclosure, but it will reduce the spray of Anons blasting away with typical anon brio. I'd rather avoid seeing other friends snapped into poor mental health via their unwise choices and bad behavior.
A hot microphone on the Internet is like leaving one's swimming pool un-gated; they shouldn't have been there, and can blame only themselves, yet it's nonetheless unpleasant to stroll into one's backyard and discover floaters.
If you don't have a Google account and would like to comment, please 1. let me know (so I can understand the problems I'm causing) and 2. send me your comment via email and I'll post it for you myself, just as a stopgap.

7 comments:

Display Name said...

testing. sorry about the drama you put up with Jim

Display Name said...

Woot. I remember when the internet was new. Very shortly after I got a pc and the internet my friend came over and helped me create a character on everquest. He picked the pvp server. This was the very first day everquest was playable. If your toon was higher and someone gave you just cause you could kill their toon. This was everquest and dying was a big deal. You could go down a level and anyone could loot your corpse and take all your hard earned gear. People were in general very polite. If someone killed your low level toon you could log on a higher level character and take revenge. It just didn't happen. The excitement was palpable as we all explored a huge dangerous world. People were in awe of this new country and the internet itself. I had to curtail my playing because my friend Erick got pissed at the online auction he sold on and gave me his account. Sometimes people needed a card right away before payday and Erick would go ahead and send their order. They always paid up. Erick bugged me for a year to join paypal. If you got someone new to join paypal would put ten dollars in your account. I've been selling for twenty one years now and every time I get an email from paypal saying you have received a payment I still get a rush. I used to play a console game called shadowrun that had cred sticks. My paypal debit card still feels like a cred stick. I am still in awe of the internet. The magic is happening right now because I am typing to you Jim. Can you believe this shit? Oh and I always wanted my own jukebox. Just wow.

James Leff said...

Many princesses focus on the (diminishing) peas, but to me the future is absolutely terrific.

Peter Cucè said...

Hey Jim
I just wanted to clarify that a Google account is not the same as a Gmail account.
Any email address can be associated with a Google account via the following link
https://accounts.google.com/SignUpWithoutGmail
Regards

James Leff said...

Thanks. Btw did you get a captcha?

Anonymous coward said...

I'm just testing to make sure I can still post. Interesting perspective. There was somebody I thought I could reason with online and they just said the f word over and over. I couldn't get anywhere with them. I was shocked. I've argued with a lot of trolls but none were quite as repetitive as that person. Got advice for dealing with such people? Thanks in advance.

Peter Cucè said...

No I didn't.

Blog Archive