h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

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I think you might well be right on the misogyny but I can't help but think his message is not entirely wide of the mark.

I'm glad I decided to sleep on it.

Ta ...





Wot, you mean you do think that I'm an offensive, self-opiniated little creep as well? Oh dear ...

Sleeping on it was a good idea, I know he's tended to be spiky but I'm not sure he was entirely sober. His message was a bit wide of the mark but why post on a predominantly female board (that is, a board where at least 80% of the posters are middle class, middle aged women) if you don't like the WI style? If you finding it cloying and cliquey, either keep it to yourself or take yourself elsewhere, you're stuck with the style of the majority whether you like it or not. That being said, I wonder how long JJF will persist in trying to wum posters in DtA

Kerpling btw, there's been a reply ...

Ah, a reply, so there has!

Er....he didn't call you that did he? I think you make a fair point about knowing the demographic makes railing against its characteristics somewhat futile, but I still think he wasn't /entirely/ wide of the mark.....

clink

Er ... yes, he did. See 131 and 133 (and 134, which was in response to 133). Perhaps my intention wasn't clear and he thought I was calling him a blah blah creep even if that's what I may or may not have thought; I wasn't, I was trying to show that his 'Every poster ...' comment resonated in an interesting inclusive way with his earlier 'creep' comment which had seemed to be poster specific but he was too unbalanced to realise this. He wasn't expressing an opinion, as he says in 137, because he was attacking the poster and not the post when he decided to bash Basia, and then he thought he'd bash everyone else whom he believed to be female indiscrimately (I offer this last to counter his unbalanced view).

Mmm sorry, I have looked at those and can't yet see how they support your interpretation. Also, what evidence is there to support the assertion that his bash targets were intentionally and exclusively female? As he says to dagesh:
"On this forum I am not aware of ladies, women, girls, boys, men or gentlemen. There are only posters."

I still think your instinct was right but perhaps my between-the-lines literacy needs an overhaul because I can't see any direct evidence, could you spell it out for me?

kerplink

Kerplunk ... no, there is no evidence and that's the point. Don't know whether I'm annoyed or upset but you don't always get a balanced view from someone who is either (or drunk); and that is the other point.

So how would you explain his 'truth is always helpful' comment in 133?

You presented an ironic juxtaposition in #131.

The phrase 'That explains so much, thank you.' can be read as meaning that what you have gleaned is not what was intended, and so can be read as sarcastic. So Septimus bats it back with the equally sarcastic:
'You're welcome. The truth is always helpful, isn't it ?'

More tea?



But it wasn't me who was giving conflicting signals, I simply quoted two (selective) text strings from the same poster on the same thread. There was no easy way to bring them together except by changing what had been written.

If my thank-you was ambivalent, then that's what it was and, yes, conflicting messages can imply double standards, hypocrisy, call it what you will. However, to assume that I was being sarcastic - my intent was irony, it's true - is in keeping with a subsequent comment in 137 which said 'Spare no-one's feelings (well, that's how every other contributor to this thread wants to conduct it !)' because not 'every other contributor', specifically me, had been hammering each other (look how upset grwg got, for instance, and whose feelings had she not be sparing?).

This is key to why I suspect that the poster's belief is that most, but possibly not all, MLer's are blah blah cliquey creeps.

Yardarm?



No, my point was that you deliberately represented those conflicting signals back to their originator with the accompanying phrase 'That explains so much, thank you.' Now, you have admitted that this could be interpreted as an accusation of hypocrisy and I think that in the light of that sarcasm is a better fit than 'ambivalence' for his likely interpretation of your comment. So his return sarcasm seems intelligible to me in this context.
Perhaps he is basically saying in a sarcastic way 'yes I have helped you understand since that is what explaining truth does-it is true that Basia is [insert phrase] so my spelling it out is helpful.'

So I'm still at a loss as to your reason to suppose it was anything other than tit for tat from his point of view.

I'm not defending his view as correct I'm just explaining why I think you have possibly taken it too personally.

clink

No, I really was ambivalent at that stage because I found it almost incredible that he could make the blah blah creep assertion and then say that he respects posters. Remember that at that time, I was not aware of any previous history.

Not to mention that his being honest is not the same as his being truthful (and I think the two phrases I clipped together may well be a truthful indicator of his underlying sentiments).

You simply cannot say 'Every poster deserves the same respect ...' in one sentence when you have called a specific poster a blah blah creep upthread and not even elsethread. If he had said 'Posters deserve the respect ...' in the plural, I wouldn't have been confused: challenge the posting, not the poster. By his postings, he showed that in his opinion every poster does not deserve the same respect; unfortunately, however, it seems they might all deserve the same lack lack of respect ... which at least levels out the playing field.

Cheers!

"You simply cannot say 'Every poster deserves the same respect ...' in one sentence when you have called a specific poster a blah blah creep upthread and not even elsethread."

It will come as no surprise to you that I think I can defend his doing so as being consistent.

Snork ... but only by sidestepping the 'respond to the post, not the poster' argument

I've noticed that in his first two postings (91 and 119), he's signed himself '7th' ... might this be a Seventh Day Adventist who takes a brotherly view of anyone taking a pop at JWs, Mormons, Christadelphians etc?

No manners, sorry.

Glowing embers, indeed. I only just stopped my self from saying 'stirring'. This isn't the first time recently when OJO has played the sniper, is it?

Where did he deploy that argument?

Oh I just thought you were pacing yourself!

He didn't deploy the argument but did sign 7th; why would he do that?

If he didn't deploy the argument then I don't need to sidestep it in order to defend his position as consistent.




The 7th thing is intriguing I agree, you might be onto something there....

Why is there never a meerkat to hand when you need one? One message, two topics.

clink

Apart from the previous history, I was seeking to understand what was making him apoplectic ...

I suppose you could ask him



So if the 'attack the post not the poster' is your construction, it isn't relevant to whether Septimus is consistent in his stance is it?