Trolls and the breakdown of community - just what they want.

----------------------------  UPDATE 5/24  -----------------------------------

From now on, comments from trolls, flame warriors, and passive aggressive attackers are gone. Take your problems to a psychologist, or a lawyer, and keep us out of it.

Here's a little free advice to the offending parties: try something different. What you're doing now is getting you nowhere.

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I was reading one of the NoMi blogger posts today, talking about new versus replacement windows, and commented on his page. His response was unexpected:

"I thought about doing a longer post about this, but James Neighbor doesn't put out enough content to be worth more than a passing comment here. For the record, I have doubts about whether James Neighbor is a real person, and I believe he or she may be doing something similar to the troll formerly known as Patrick. Patrick would take a position articulated by a NoMi blogger and bring it to a ludicrous extreme."


"There are a number of hints in the James Neighbor blog that make me believe he or she is actually one of the trolls I've banned here. If I'm wrong, JN, then chalk it up to having to deal with folks like Don, Terry, JHG, or Jim Watkins. If I'm right, well, you're on notice that James Neighbor comments will be closely watched."


Wow, tough crowd here for a NoMi newbie trying to join the conversation. Looks like the grass is full of snakes. I've heard horror stories of the vicious state of the blog scene here, and the damage done to trust and goodwill is evidenced by HH's response. I am not at all surprised. As soon as we put up the first post on this blog a couple weeks back, we were almost immediately paid the "left handed compliment" of a nasty but amusing parody of that blog, turned on its head by "Area Neighor", probably from the same source as "Area Hawkman" and similar troll personas. It appears that the party behind AN/AH is laying in wait for comments on the big NoMi blogs, and tracks back likely leads to foment mischief.

I don't mind AN, after the initial shock of recognition I was rather flattered that he (or it) would take the time to grunt out such a full bucket of crap. Some people have lots of time on their hands, and nothing worthwhile to fill them with except their own excement. Idle hands, as the saying goes ...


I'm curious: is AN a real troll, or an early "proof of concept" example of that "sock monkey" cyber warfare program the Pentagon has come up with to fill the Internet blogs, forums and news groups with poisonous drivel? Expect to see more of that in the coming months, as soon as the political parties and their propagandists figure out how to work that system to their advantage.

But now at least one of the established bloggers here claims I'm the troll, and word gets around. In this case, the word is mistaken; I don't know any of you guys, haven't met anybody but James, of course, and a few other people on the block, and a couple folks at the present JACC...

The Hatfield clan in 1897

DING!!! Oh, I get it! I've blundered onto the field of somebody else's civil war; the JACC battle is merely a grease spot on the continuing train wreck that is North Minneapolis politics. They say it's been crashing for decades. Reminds me of a co-worker I once knew with the last name of "McCoy". He was one of those McCoy's, as in Hatfield & McCoy. Those two families on the Kentucky/West Virginia border feuded and tore at each other beginning in the Civil War, with body counts mounting for about 30 years. My McCoy friend was rather jocular about the whole story, saying those families were fighting over the most worthless, pitiful patch of land imaginable, and they should have just moved instead. Sounds familiar, eh?

Interestingly, the people I meet face to face in this end of town are unfailingly friendly and polite. But the blogger gangs appear to be overgrown cybernerds that never got over being picked on in high school, and feel the need to create superhero-like personas on the internet to mask their insecurities. They talk big, but I haven't met any of them at a local function yet. Maybe they're content to be legends - in their own minds.

Oh, well, to each his own. Our blog tends toward the pretty garden and OMG Tornado! end of the spectrum, and I think that's where it's going to remain.