Below is an email that came in during the 12 or so hours after Blogger updated its software once again. For a time, many readers couldn't access the page. I've been out of the country with some family, so wasn't aware of it until the mail started to fly. The writer below (deliciously) is a frequent commenter on our page, and although I'm always a bit tempted to out the "real mail" people, he/she can be assured I won't do that. But, please, if the page seems broken temporarily, don't assume the worst:
This is it. I am so sick of how you choose to just block anyone with a different opinion. I used to scoff at honest_prof and anonymous - what vain and petty men. But now I see it as they do.
As if you didn't know. I've tried to view CM today, and got a message that I was blocked. I can only assume it's because I don't read back the party line to you and the rest of your yahoos. Well, that's fine. But why don't you have the stones to answer any of the emails I've sent today since I found out that you banned me from the page? Are you a chickenshit in addition to being - well, a double chickenshit, I guess.
What good is this page if you don't allow it to live and breathe. You seem consumed with squelching the slightest bit of controversy. How do you ever get any work done at school if you're constantly deleting comments, and snuffing out the virtual life of anyone - and I'm the latest - who deigns to see the academy in a different way.
For all the bullshit about this place being "our page," you certainly rule it with a hammer dick. Well, fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck you!
There are enough of us who are sick of how you run the page, and I have designs to start a competing page. What competition? All I have to do is tell 5 friends about my page and I'll swamp your hit count within a month. And my page will be free, open, full of discussions right and rangy and too damn real for the likes of you.
I've tried to keep my cool all this time as I've watched you manhandle the page and shoo away the real talents. But now I'll just bury you instead.
How about that? I bet you won't answer this email either, you coward.
I'm a grad student. When I become a professor, is becoming insane something that happens automatically, or is there a course I need to take?
ReplyDeleteWasn't me, but I'm not a regular!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.hulu.com/watch/2364/saturday-night-live-weekend-update-emily-litella-on-violins-on-tv
Wasn't me! Dang, though, that is some serious crazaaay. Is there a "party line"? I thought the rule for the site was pretty much "don't be a dick." I can see how that constraint would be intolerable to the writer of that e-mail.
ReplyDeleteI thought about writing (more politely and less batshit-crazily), but figured it was either a glitch, or a sign from above that I should stop surfing the Internet and finish my fucking book already.
ReplyDelete@Kurt: it's happening to you already, one day at a time. You'll only realize it retroactively. Sorry.
Wow. That's some God damned email you got there, pardner.
ReplyDeleteAs much as he overreacted, he has a point. The blog is handled with a heavy hand. If you are in the clubhouse, you can talk smack. If you are on the outside, you get deleted cause you don't "talk nice" community rules. Makes academics look bad, but more importantly it restricts the viewpoints expressed to a very narrow part of our community.
ReplyDeleteDr. Jekyll: I am amazed that people would send such e-mails. These writers seem to have a tenuous grip on reality.
ReplyDeleteProf. Hyde: Strelnikov and I will ensure these letter writers spend some time in re-education camps.
@Anon: please. Enough already. Deleting ad hominem attacks is not heavy-handed. Even the stoner surfers on my favorite sports blog take a harder line on trolls than this place. The rules are clear and reasonable, but if you insist on playing the role of adolescent provocateur, you'll always find something to complain about. Yawn.
ReplyDeleteI thought the "party line" at CM (and at RYS) was "Where is the party? I brought booze."
ReplyDeleteI received a series of emails like that from a student once... I reported her to my chair.
ReplyDeleteI admit it; it was me!
ReplyDeleteAfter my response to the last bag of real goddamned email, I think you pretty much know what I'd have to say to this tea partying nimrod.
ReplyDelete'Twasn't me, but I would like to say some of those words to anonymous. Is that wrong?
ReplyDeleteI asked if it was some sort of glitch, and if Comrade Site Manager was trying to clear out riffraff like Anonymous, and asked to be let back in. I don't insult the Sysop because that person holds all the keys.
ReplyDelete@Prof. Hyde
The labor camp system needs young people (idiot students) as inmates because the labor is so harsh and the climate unforgiving; I have another place planned for people like Anon. - it's called "The Village" and everybody will have to wear numbers and the inmates cannot tell who the guards are (also the administration constantly changes to keep the inmates off-balance.)
What do you think?
Kurt - it happens automatically. There is some informal training at faculty meetings and by the process of reading endless stacks of student writing, but most of it just happens.
ReplyDeleteOnce again, the strong correlation between extreme narcissism/borderline personality disorder and academia is borne out. I love it when the world is so fucking predictable.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, what the fuck does "the real talents" mean in this context? How much talent does it take to write a comments and press "post comment" anyway?
ReplyDeleteArchie, it takes all the talent I have.
ReplyDeleteHmm. . .I missed the glitch. That's probably good news, since it means I'm managing to spend at least part of the summer *not* pecking away at my keyboard and longing for distraction. But I'm pretty sure I would have recognized it as a glitch, and waited a while to see if it resolved itself (or maybe just taken it as a sign that I shouldn't spend so much time on CM).
ReplyDeleteNarcissism, BPD, off hir meds, three sheets to the wind, just gibbering after too much exposure to undergraduates and/or fellow academics -- all strike me as plausible explanations for the missive above. Sorry it interrupted your vacation, Fab.
Oh, F&T!
ReplyDeleteWow, I tried to post and figured it was a glitch but THIS... THIS takes some seriously psychosis to (1) assume you were blocking the person on purpose, and (2) not responding to email IMMEDIATELY as they would have liked. WOW! This person should be banned from EVER complaining about snowflakes again. EVER.
ReplyDeleteSorry you have to take this kind of abuse from someone who is clearly, clearly on a narcissistic rampage.
And the fact that I have no grammatical skills left is to be blamed on summer... sorry about that.
ReplyDeleteAnd WHY can't you OUT people like this, Fab? They deserve to be outed for being such an asshole.
Don't feed the trolls, especially that anonymous guy. But isn't the original anonymous the guy who always predicts our doom? This must be honest_prof. Tools, all of them.
ReplyDeleteClearly it was Yaro.
ReplyDeleteJesus H Christ on a Yugoslavian water buffalo. That was intensely batshit crazy email, there.
ReplyDeleteAaaaaannnnd....water off a duck's back. *Delete*
I had trouble logging in, but I just sent a reasonably polite note to the mod, who explained the technical problems and encouraged me to try again. It still doesn't work on Internet Explorer, now I'm using Firefox and it works fine. No reason for abusive language and name-calling... I haven't noticed comments getting deleted all that often.
ReplyDeleteDear Whatever You Are:
ReplyDeletePlease start your own blog. Before you have 5 friends who are willing to view your malicious rants, you must find 1 friend who is willing to view them. I'm certain that you will find this obstacle to be insurmountable.
Sincerely yours,
Not Your Friend
Wow. There are times I fly off the handle too soon and I regret it, but all I have to do is look at this real goddamned mail and realize that, in comparison, I'm a fuckin' zen master.
ReplyDelete