Re: Tom Turley: Banned from Attending K-Fest '97

[pubpc1@library.ucla.edu]

DynaSoar@YGRI.net (Doktor DynaSoar) wrote:
>nathan@visi.com (Nathan Mates) sent bitwaves which read:
>}In article <339481A7.68B9@grin.net>,
>}Charles T. 'Dr. Tom' Turley <cturley@grin.net> wrote:
>}>I can hold up a list of positive contributions to the A2 community
>}>that will match anything you can list and then some!
>}
>}   Dogbert: "One advantage of being stupid is that you get twice
>}as many compliments."
>
>    DynaSoar: "Throw enough of it around and you're going to step in it."
>
>}   Tip: pissing off every developer, pirating software left and right,
>}and being unwilling to accept that you're at fault and wrong in
>}pirating, flames, and the like is NOT a positive contribution, no
>}matter how skitzo you are. (Your medication needs an uppage again)
>
>By the same logic, since you see fit to be abusive, all your work on
>those FAQs doesn't count for squat. The Apple world would be better off
>without you and the entire pack of rabid would-be assassins that have
>been infesting it. You should give the job to someone else before people
>get the idea that Apple users are people like you.

Tell me about it.  What does psychology say about Nate's obsessive
need to be abusive?

Following this newsgroup for the past year, here is what I've
observed.  Joe Kohn has a dislike for Dr. Tom because he believes
that he got ripped off by him.  I don't blame Kohn at all.

Dr. Tom _has_ been helpful to the Apple II community.  Whatever
wrong he did in the past does not erase that.  However, if one
believes what is said about him spamming LemminGS to the pirate
sites, then I can understand Joe Kohn and Brutal Deluxe being
upset.  I tend to stay out of such a dispute.

However, we don't see Joe Kohn rudely attacking just anyone because
of simple errors in their posts.  I'm not talking about Dr. Tom,
which he seems to have a serious grievance with.  I'm talking about
the ordinary new user or even people who try to help them.

Somehow, Nate has fixed on me as a target.  I'm not claiming that
my posts are 100% free from error, but they are helpful.  At the
very least, they provide a list of clickable links to the major
Apple II developers and retailers.

Nate seems to have a need to flame if he thinks his point is not
getting across.  He seems to need to dominate conversations.  Also,
he tends to need to insult someone in a sizable fraction of his
posts.

For example, "Tim in Town" posted a simple question asking about
whether it was possible to surf the web using a IIgs.  He said
that the current computer he uses to do this was a Pentium PC.
Automatically, Nate goes on the attack saying, in short, that
if Tim thought he could view MPEGs and the like on a IIgs, he
was stupid and spamming his _opinion_ (as though it were fact)
that pictures on web pages are stupid in any case.  I answered
Tim politely and provided clickable links to developers and
retailers, suggested that the GS was fine for searching for
academic journal articles on the web but that for looking at
pictures a PC or Mac was in order.  Guess what?  Tim replied by
public post that my answer to him was helpful and polite.  He
was gracious enough to thank Nate, but was clearly turned off by
his rudeness.

Let's analyze this for a moment.  Tim asks a simple question,
but Nate _automatically_ assumes the _worst_ and thinks that
Tim thinks he can play animations on a GS as fast as on a Pentium.
Nate then acts on his erroneous assumption and _attacts_ that
person based on it.  Tim later has to correct Nate by posting
saying that he did _not_ think that.  Nate has done this to many
others before.

Another example is when someone posts "I can't seem to find xyz
on ground, can someone point the way?"  Nate assumes that the
user is _complaining_ and _chides_ them to bug the sysadmins of
ground.  He also tends to post a long manifesto style opinion
that ground is mangled and passes it off as fact.  The reality
is that the user is asking a question.  He's not complaining,
but rather asking for directions.  Also, Nate is projecting
his opinion of ground onto others.  It would be like if someone
asked me for street directions and me jumping to the conclusion
that he was complaining about the street layout.

Summary of Nate's typical flame:

Responding to "Can I use abc to do xyz?"

Nate would answer "If you think you can do xyz with abc, you
     are boneheaded."

1) False assumptions of other people's motives.
2) Attacking people based on his own false assumptions.
3) Concluding that there is something wrong with other
   people and that he is justified in attacking them.


Lastly, Nate tends to believe his own views are more correct
than others, period.  For example, because his RamFAST is very
much faster with DMA on than off, he assumes that others must
be the same.  He then slams 8MB users because he assumes that
they are in denial, sacrificing significant amounts of drive
speed for what he considers useless memory.  However, he
neglects that not all GS computers are configured the same way.
A fast GS with an Apple HS SCSI card, for example, sees little
difference with DMA turned on or off (about 1 sec difference in
boot time).  _Without_ considering this possibility, Nate
concludes that the reason 8MB users claim there is no significant
speed penalty for turning DMA off is "sour grapes."  He can't
grasp that there are other people for whom DMA off in fact has
little speed penalty and who have legitamate uses for large memory.

For a person that professes to believe solely on facts, Nate
is remarkably sold on his own opinions and assumptions

I know that psychoanalysis is no longer taken seriously by
psychologists, but I wonder what Freud would say about Nate's
behavior?  :)

I would like to know your opinion and Dr. Buggie's, but I'll
understand if you decide to keep them to yourselves and avoid
fanning flames.

-Scott G.