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Posted to rec.food.cooking
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How to NOT feed the kooks was OT Someone's Legal Name
George Shirley wrote:
> Charlotte L. Blackmer wrote:
>> In article >,
>> Little Malice > wrote:
>>> One time on Usenet, (Charlotte L. Blackmer)
>>> said:
>>>> In article >, Ophelia
>>>> > wrote: <snip>
>>>
>>>>> If you were being attacked in this way, how long could you
>>>>> restrain yourself from defending yourself?
>>>> Do a google groups search on my full name as a phrase - both with
>>>> and without the initial - and get back to me on that. I've had
>>>> one particular pet kook for over a dozen years now.
>>> Wow. I'm really sorry about that, Charlotte. I witnessed one death
>>> threat to a friend 12 years ago and it scared me enough to stop
>>> using my legal last name. I can't imagine what you've been through.
>>> I feel sort of cowardly now...
>>
>> You know, I would never think you were. There are a lot of good
>> reasons to use pseudonyms, as I well know. Anyway, sometimes I am
>> too damn stubborn for my own good  . There are plenty of people
>> using screen names who are "present as themselves" and not doing anything
>> that would qualify as "hiding behind a keyboard". That last is, of
>> course, a sad fact of internet life - it's a true mark of character
>> to see what someone does when s/he is assured of being able to "get
>> away with it", and many people on the Net fail that particular test.
>>
>> In places with a good tradition of offline social interaction (like
>> RFC!), there's less of that nonsense. Long-term also helps.
>>
>> (Mind you, Asshats Hiding Behind Keyboards are the reason that
>> moderated web fora are so popular these days. I think most of them
>> have taken to drive-by comments on blogs, or on news sites these
>> days.) If my kooks weren't basically cowards, I would have done the
>> following: 1) filed a police report
>> 2) change accounts and disappear for a while
>> 3) target practice for self-defense
>>
>> Now the thing I won't go anywhere near these days is posting from a
>> work account or through an employer's system (and that counts posting
>> through Google Groups). When I was first on usenet, I was on a
>> company account. (It was early days, so there was no AUP then. But
>> I will note that I was often there evenings doing system work.) It
>> was, however, scary when I acquired StalkerBoy by the simple
>> expedient of turning down his request for a date - he knew where I
>> worked. In later days, I have become one of those people who sets up that
>> sort of infrastructure at the office and investigates abuse reports,
>> so I so don't want to go there.
>>
>> ObFood: Will read and interpret Internet headers for it.
>>
>> Charlotte
>>
>>
> About 8 or 9 years ago an elderly woman who was a member of a mailing
> list I used to run decided she was going to "get" me. Lots of foul
> language, threats, etc. Banned her from the mailing list, started
> getting emails direct. Finally called the police where she lived and
> filed a complaint of stalking. In a few days they called me, had
> arrested her, she was undergoing psychiatric testing. Ultimately they
> let me know she had been hospitalized and was being treated for
> schizophrenia. Some folks on the internet truly are kooks. Anyway I
> never heard from her again and have no idea of the ultimate results of
> her hospitalization.
I would say you behaved responsibly and in fact acted in her best interests.
--
Enzo
I wear the cheese. It does not wear me.
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