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Edited on Mon Jan-04-10 06:06 AM by RoyGBiv
I don't go into most discussions like that expecting much. I use them more as an excuse to test my own theories and logic and find my own gaps in understanding.
Plus, it provides a contrast that can influence people's thinking who don't post often. I'll add my own IBTL personal commentary to explain that a bit.
My first lengthy experience with online discussion groups began back in the early 90s with a group devoted to discussion of aspects of the American Civil War. It was different than other groups with that subject I had briefly frequented in two respects. This was Usenet, and this still during the time when even having access to Usenet generally meant one had a university account, which meant most of the participants were academics. Second, the issues discussed were not the common "fan boy" militarism so common among Civil War buffs, and I was drawn into the economic, social, cultural, and personal discussions that took place and at great depth. Most of my friendships and associations with people in the academic community began there, and those associations have been highly influential in my life. If I were to list some of the names of people who participated, it would be like writing a list of some of the more famous people in the historical community, particularly Southernists, African American and Reconstruction specialists. I was in awe at the wealth of knowledge and the participants' willingness to accept me into their community, to be frank about it.
Well, things changed. AOL started handing out free access discs, complete with Usenet access they marketed as somehow unique to AOL, and an explosion of Internet access generally changed the makeup of that little group. It eventually split into an unmoderated and a moderated group, and at length, mostly died. (I checked it recently. It's still there, with some recognizable names, but almost all of them have severe personality disorders.)
What had happened was that the place was inundated with modern day secessionists and slavery apologists who had more a political purpose in mind in posting than a historical one. This is where I became associated with some members of the then fledgling League of the South and learned more than I wanted to know about the Sons of Confederate Veterans and how it functions. In the unmoderated group, the discussions degenerated to insanity where people commonly posted things very much like what's in that thread referenced here, only worse. Most of the academics split for sunnier climes, at least the really busy ones, and we ended up with pretty much a running liberal vs. conservative diatribe only thinly veiled in other terms. And most of it was shouting.
There was one individual, whose name I won't repeat because I think he's one of Satan's minions and is summoned when his name appears but who you've probably heard or read at some point, who was notorious for these lengthy, racist rants he pretended weren't. One day, a group of us started communicating via e-mail about him and what to do with him. (Due to technical issues, you can't effectively "ban" someone from Usenet, not even from a moderated group, and his influence reached across both.) What we came up with was crazy and difficult, but in the end, it worked. We addressed him as though we were addressing a rational, sane man and even allowed some of his less offensive posts to get through moderation with the assumption we would all jump on him with lengthy, detailed, but rational arguments in opposition. We actually went overboard with it. It made him crazy(-ier). After several months of this, he gave up and left completely. Another thing happened as well. We, as an unidentified group, started getting personal e-mails from people thanking us for it.
His whole purpose was to enrage people, as was later discovered with verifiable, documented proof. He was, in other words, a plant sent there in an attempt to undermine academics whom he tried to bait into saying something stupid he could pass on to his associates who would then use it in political circles. (Remember the whole Georgia state flag thing? There was a lot of this going on there.)
This kind of thing would never work on DU unless we had a group of committed (probably a bit crazy themselves) people numbering in the hundreds who could follow up consistently. There's too much of it to address in this way. But, I still go back to that occasionally in individual threads. It's part of the reason I chose to engage someone clearly delusional about what an appropriate attributable quote is in another thread yesterday.
And don't worry about the profanity. I fall out of my dissertative mode quite often and could make a sailor blush. What's going on in my head very often has little relation to what ends up on the screen. :)
The other post goes up tomorrow, probably late afternoon as registration starts tomorrow, which means my work day will be hell with no time for this diversion. I had some sleep problems over the weekend and don't want to post it in the middle of the night.
Take care ...
OnEdit: I piss myself off. I can read something I've written twice before posting, find nothing wrong, and still find a "meaning changing" typo five seconds after I post it. Grrr ...
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