>|JMS posted one snarky comment and wandered off. I realize that he has
>|a lot of problems dealing with people who critique his work, but he
>|really needs to get over that and grow up.

As usual, a distortion. I see all kinds of critiques (and criticisms) of my
work and I don't respond to 99.9% of them because a person's opinion is their
opinion, there's no arguing it. If somebody doesn't like something, they don't
like it, that's that.

But what I was responding to here was not a critique, it was someone posting
absolutely false and misleading information, pretending to have information
that he did not, in fact, have, and attacking my reputation as a consequence of
that. I thus came in to set the record straight.

>|It's *always* been considered bad form on Usenet to start something
>|and not finish it. Why was he here, anyway? I was under the
>|impression that he never read rast or b5.unruly. Did he take a wrong
>|turn? Was he <gasp> trolling?

Except, of course, the one little aspect not mentioned here is that I did NOT
"start something." This thread was in place long before I got here, and the
allegations and misstatements were here before I got here, and I came in in
*response* to what was being said. That is not by any Internet definition
trolling.

I do not have time to sit on-line and respond to every single person who comes
along afterward and, as with the above cases, mis-states or misrepresents the
situation, because then I would be doing nothing else.

But it was not in any way, manner, shape or form "trolling." It was a response
to a pre-existing thread that contained false information.

Finally:

>This thread was crossposted to Heck and Back. It wandered into b5.mod.
>His reply wandered out.

That's one part of it...the other part is that the person who started all this
with his inaccurate statements did the honorable thing and fessed up,
acknowledged them, and apologized. Once that's done, what's the point in
hammering the guy, and continuing the conversation when the point is long gone?


jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
(all message content (c) 2004 by synthetic worlds, ltd.,
permission to reprint specifically denied to SFX Magazine
and don't send me story ideas)