Readers of this newsgroup have noted, and asked about, the reason why
my postings here have been on the steady decline for some months now.

The reason is that I have been reading, and thus replying, less than
before, because it seems that nearly every thread have a posting by an
individual who has dedicated himself to the task of insulting me on a
constant basis, on a personal and professional basis. This nearly
pathological obsession has manifested itself as, for lack of a better
term, the death of a thousand papercuts. Each post is, on its own, as
irrelevant and unimportant as he is, but in the aggregate becomes a
constant note of insult. He remains in this group not to participate
in the discussion, but to find some way to work an insult or derogatory
comment about me at every possible opportunity. He is, for lack of a
better term, going out of his way to shit on me in a place where he
knows I have to read it...because that is his goal, to insult me where
he knows that I hang out...because he's too much of a coward to do it
to my face.

I'm not talking about critical opinions of a show, or disagreements,
I'm talking about bald-faced insults, affronts, digs and offense on a
personal and professional nature that have no business here.

I have discussed this previously with the moderators, who say they are
powerless to keep him out, that he has made it clear to them that he
does not and will not respect the will of either the moderators or the
members of this newsgroup, who he views with utter contempt, as
evidenced in the many messages in which he has described the members of
this group as "joe worshippers" and terms too vile for me to repeat.
He has stated to the moderators that if he is forced to leave, that he
will simply join again under a different ISP or a different name, that
the group must and will be held hostage to his conviction that the
moderators have no authority over him, that he can ignore the purpose
of this group, which is in part to provide a buffer zone between me and
net-stalkers, and that his right to be here outweighs the right of the
group or anyone in that group to keep him out, myself included.

A writer has only three resources: time, energy and visceral material,
and when those are being spent being pissed off, when every message
thread you'd otherwise like to participate in gets hijacked and
polluted by a dozen new insults, snide asides or affronts, you just
stop reading because life's too short.

Since the moderators cannot remove this individual due to his threats
to remain no matter their actions, or the intentions or guidelines of
this group, it seems that I therefore have no choice but to absent
myself from this group. It is for this reason that I have already
mainly stopped reading and posting, and the members of this group, who
have participated in good faith for so long, deserve an explanation.

With luck, my departure will remove this individual's reason for being
here, and at least the group can return to a discussion of the pros and
cons of the show without his presence, because my absence will have
taken all the fun out of it.

jms