Someone just tried to argue on JOS that the forum design has user interface faults. Got zapped. Surprise surprise. Seems like Joel really can't take criticism. I guess that's one JOS newcomer who won't be going back there.

It's "meta".  "Meta" isn't allowed because Joel has no good arguments.

:-)

But he won't *know* his post has been zapped.

Even if whole threads vanish, other's posts included?

Drat, "other's" should be "others'".

Why would the other posts disappear to the OP? They only need to delete those if they want to train the filter.

'Cos they disappeared to me. One minute there was a whole thread containing to and fro discussion with different posters, later the whole thread vanished.

You lot certainly have your panties in a bunch with Joel lately.

Oh, yeah definately. I try to save a guy's life and he calls me a cold blooded murderer to his umpteen million readers, and not only does he refuse to change it, he won't even acknowledge me when I email him.

Just going by what I see. Joel has really gone down in my estimation when, after posting a comment about user interface design, he is not prepared to see a public debate about his own user interface. How much more on topic could that be?

Joel has never shown an ounce of capability to accept criticism.

Philo

MarkTAW, this seems to be accelerating. Weren't you pissed over some wording earlier? How did it get to "he calls me a cold blooded murderer to his umpteen million readers"? I read  his post and just kinda blew it off as 'what a wanker' but then not being part of the core ... but just one of the 'occasional someones would wander in by accident' it may be easier for me. Why you taking it so hard? Is it the sudden disassociation? Fuck him if he can't take a joke.

yeah, MarkTaw seems to be particularly sensitive about Joels 'rejection'

I really dont understand it, the chances of it affecting anything as actually real as Marks career in psych are pretty vanishingly small.

I think maybe hes just overreacting cause hes a weiner...

"Some of the participants in the group had probably crossed the line from common obnoxious online behavior to downright psychopathic behavior."

_Some_ of the participants ...

... had _probably_ crossed ...

doesn't sound like he even a remote clue WTF was going on to me.

hes carefully making it sound like he had no idea what was going on, hadn't even read the forum in forever and was entirely oblivious to the fact that a suicide note had been written and carried through on ?off

in an earlier draft he carefully blamed the moderators for everything bad that had ever happened.

frankly the guys a bit of a prat.

<shrug> like it matters to me.

missed this:

"downright psychopathic behaviour"

WTF does Joel know about "downright psychopathic behaviour" and having never or rarely visited the site HTF would he know that the behaviour was "downright psychopathic"? ... this mysterious 'buddy' of his? I call the whole thing "downright" bull shit.

shit, now my panties are in a bunch :)

I sent him an email yesterday. Here's an excerpt:

The fact that you've decided to characterize the people populating ?off as psychopathic really disturbs me. Perhaps you don't think it's the pejorative that I do, or maybe you whole heartedly believe the behavior was psychopathic, but I'd like you to change that word.

To me it means someone who has a complete disregard for human life, and if discovered, should be locked away in a prison or mental institution for life. It's an incurable disease, and something I don't want to be associated with.

I also think it's unfair to characterize the whole based on the actions of a few bad apples (whoever you think they may be), especially since you go out of your way to mention that the barrel was miniscule to begin with. "Some participants" out of 10 is a giant percentage.

...

You describe it as "downright disturbing" - which is fine, that's an opinion and you have every right to express your opinion. It's also, quite frankly, correct. Your use of the word psychopathic, on the other hand, appears to me to cross the line into an attempt to diganose a clincally observable disease. I think you should no more use that term than to say we had cancer or AIDS or any other illness.




Melodramatic, maybe, but there's a stedfast refusal to even acknowledge anything I've said. I know I'm obsessing over this apparently minor thing and it's unhealthy, etc. etc., but it's a huge slap in the face. It mischaracterizes me, everything I've done and everyone I associated with, including Chris.

That is *not* how things should be remembered, by anybody.

The amended bit took out the square brackets: "In a discussion group which prides itself on "anything goes," this was impossible to control [, and the moderators I had appointed chose not to control it]."

The other thing of course is that Mark is now studying medicine and I believe wants to specialise in psychiatric medicine.

I think you're allowing yourself to be Joel's bitch by getting so upset about it, ESPECIALLY writing him emails requesting a retraction/edit, etc etc

Get over it.  He's a dick and you're making a fool of yourself both in pouting about it and in trying to reason with him over some semantic point.

its not being remembered.  thats the point.  its a tiny footnote in history and no one except the participants (approx 50 people in an internet of millions) actually gives a shit.

get over it already :)

besides, no one on the internet uses psychopathic as anything except a rather bland insult except trained doctors.
and trained doctors know that Joel isn't a trained doctor and is therefore not using it as anything except a rather bland insult.

oh, and I like muppets point about being Joels bitch.  the mans a prat, stop putting him in a position of power over yourself and get over it.

Of course I'll get over it, but at this moment in time, and since we're all discussing it already, I'm being pissed.

There's also probably more than a touch of really bothered by the whole suicide thing, and a complete lack of sleep/having to change my sleep cycle fueling it.

Yeah, Mark dude - I agree with everyone else. The only people who know of your role in these events are here and are tuned in already, and we know what you tried to do.

It's not even a footnote - nobody would know unless you kept bringing it up. Joel definitely wants it to disappear.

His association is more "first order" than yours because the board was located on his server.

it is a valid position that he totally negated everything that MarkTAW and example (plus some others - sorry for the exclusion) did to assist in the situation and yea he's pretty much a fucking moron for dropping the ball instead of making an issue out of what was done to help ... in the end you still have to consider who he is and why he took the stance he did. Why he didn't spin it to his advantage ... or did he????

He's just a Putz, walk it off!

Okay, fine. I'll give it up. Joel's an asshole, blah blah blah.

So... that's really one obnoxious orange, and is it me, or does that "faucet" look like an obscene drawing of a guy with an umbrella and a really huge...

Or maybe that was intentional.

a what?  oh.  no.  no, just you I think.

I can't see how you could possibly see that, no.

That said, it IS about the strangest looking faucet that I think you could hope for.  Something more generically faucet-like might be better.

Oh come on. A guy, with an umbrella (or maybe a chinese guy with one of those pointy hats...).

At least the white stuff dripping out could be misconstrued.

Back me up here, Phlo.

And why isn't it hotlinked to something utterly hilarious?

Maybe we should make Warner a moderator, this place doesn't have nearly enough bananas.

dont go near his back philo.  thats just impolite in public.

Philo wouldn't be intereested in my back unless I sprouted breasts back there.

kind of like an angel but with boobs instead of wings.

mmmmmmm....angel boobs......

looks like one of those goofy rain hats you see the no-necks wearing at football games.

Thank you.

Now explain that thing stick out the side with the white stuff dripping out.

Ahem ... looks like a ::cough: faucet to me, whatcha been smoking MarkTAW.

Why do I have the commentary from a Austin Powers movie going through my head ... you know the one, wang, noodle, pecker ...

I don't know.... was that from Gold Member, I never saw Gold Member.

The orgasmic chinaman pic really should be linked to goatse...

Or to that chick's journal with the ducks with colandars on their heads.

Philo

they're geese

i dunno the one where they were on the island and took off in a rocket that looked like a hammer c/w dangly plums.

Oh, I think that was the first one... Or maybe the second one. I did see it, though, in any case.

The Austin Powers gag was in one of the first two, and again in the third (I think Ozzy says something about them doing the same gag as in the last movie).

I did notice, though, that although MarkTAW's moderator status disappeared immediately, his CityDesk endorsement remains.  That, to me, sums up everything one needs to know about the situation.

LOL.

Interesting observation.

Mark, I was just posting a thought that the "Troll of the Month" thing may have pushed Joel's button.  You think, maybe?
http://crazyontap.codaris.com/topic.php?TopicId=152&Posts=4
Let's put it this way, It probably didn't help that you got nothing but positive replies to that suggestion.  ;-P

He did take it pretty badly when Dennis accused him of something akin to trolling. I forget the specifics, but yeah, he probably didn't like that too much.