NP Elementary (school), Watson

[cj hurtt]

well since i'm in a mood to throw in my 2 cents, i'm going to.
i have to agree that the chasing away of new subscribers is not only
annoying and childish but seems to run counter to the whole idea of this
list. sadly, this kind of pettiness and elitism is inevitable in this forum.
lit breeds elitism. little clubs and clubs within clubs are bound to grow in
this kind of environment...always hostile to outsiders.
always quick to snub someone's "obvious" observation or engage in some sort
of tired semantic battle or smash someone for the fun of it. the
one-upmanship in assholery here is astounding.
as for doug: god knows i've had my clashes with him in the past..especially
when i first joined this list in 97 or 98. but i have also had many pleasant
conversations with him on and off list. he is not the ass he gets painted
out to be. and before anyone gets paranoid, no i am not doug. my real name
is cj hurtt and i am very easy to find. furthermore, i have no allegiance to
any of the piss war factions here. i like doug, jbor, david morris, and the
rest of y'all equally. but, some of the attitudes are fucking annoying.
well, i'm done rambling....back to quietness.



>It's a fascinating phenomenon, but basically pretty sad. It's actually all
>about "control" - even when it's parading as anarchy - and it's anathema to
>Pynchon's work.
>
>There's a small crop of long-time listers who post using multiple
>pseudonyms, partly in order to upset discussions they don't like or to
deter
>new subscribers who they suspect hold alternative points of view to their
>own. Sometimes the anonymous name or identity change is benign, and
>sometimes it's clever and funny, but sometimes the pseudonym contributes
>unintelligible or half-intelligible posts in order to abort a discussion.
>Other times they'll invent a new persona to try and get a thread going:
"Hi,
>I'm Kyle Winkler and I want to talk about .... ", usually something
>unrelated and superficial, but sometimes it's something which is
potentially
>quite interesting or fun. Trouble is, when the pseudonymous identity fools
a
>couple of real people into engaging with it and then can't go on with it
the
>discussion quickly collapses. People soon get jack of that.
>
>There are a few who pop up every now and then to decry the subject or
>quality of the discussion, again, because they don't agree with what's
being
>discussed or they haven't got any substantive rebuttal. These same people
>will vehemently support the NP "political" discussions, but only as long as
>it's *their* political opinions which are being voiced.
>
>But it's the offlist intimidation tactics which are the most puerile and
>destructive. Most recently we've had "Jerky" sending abusive and
>intimidating messages offlist to new subscribers, and I recall "Kyle
>Winkler" trying to start up an on-list flame war by baiting another poster
>offlist. When I first posted to the list a few years back (I'd been lurking
>for a couple of months so I had a fair idea of what was what) Doug sent me
a
>series of off-list posts asking what my intentions were and instructing me
>in no uncertain terms which posters I should not respond to. When I replied
>to him politely that I was big enough to make up my own mind thanks very
>much he told me rather brusquely to piss off to a chat-room. I know other
>people have had the same and similar experiences with him. In the past this
>sort of tactic has been an on-list one also - "Peter Redzinger" and
>"slothrop666" are two troll-names which spring to mind, but there have been
>many more, and not all of them Doug.
>
>Terrance used to be among the clique of course, and he was obviously
coached
>in using similar sorts of tactics, but it's obvious that they regard him as
>a quisling now. I remember getting a couple of offlist queries from his
>"Jane Suete" persona which I took time to respond to thoughtfully and
>honestly, and then ... nothing.  Before "her" true identity was uncovered
it
>was definitely an attempted disguise on his part, nothing transparent about
>it at all. I doubt that he's Monica - though Weaver's paranoia seems
>well-reseached - but Terrance as "public domain" is still throwing his
>accusations and insults around. He's all bitter and twisted but, as far as
I
>can recall, he is yet to make a coherent or substantiated point about
>Pynchon's work even though the list is about 200 gazillion words in the
hole
>with him. Perhaps he has, I don't bother to try and make sense of what he
>posts any more.
>
>Basically it means that the delete button does get a pretty good workout,
>and that interesting discussions, whether about Pynchontext, or NP topics
>(politics, literature, film etc) are few and far between, and can't be
>sustained for long. Having said that, there are still many good people on
>the list too, and lots of interesting information and ideas and links get
>posted. Overall, though, it's the tactics of a few selfish and
>self-opinionated people which have served to decimate the list. I know of
>quite a few posters who have been driven away because of the shenanigans,
>the constant baiting and flame-wars, the offlist bullshit, the hijacking,
>the ad hominem. Another problem is that the trolling has been so endemic
for
>so long that when legitimate new subscribers do come along they're either
>ignored, like the fellow who posted about McLuhan recently, or accused of
>being Doug. It isn't just Doug, of course, it's a group of about two or
>three. I think they think of themselves as a "Counterforce" or "We-system"
>but, in reality, they're just "naughty little boys".
>
>I thought the idea was to attract new subscribers and, correspondingly, new
>readers of Pynchon's work, not to deter them. Perhaps what's needed is a
>warning on the Pynchon-L welcome page. Murthy? "Oxymoron"?
>
>best
>
>