[On the few occasions in this reply where I have used the word "you", it
refers to Richard Bos. Where I mean a more generic "you", I have used the
appalling neologism "yougeneric".]
Richard Bos said:
Stop replying to yourself.
I have not done so. I have no need to hide behind sock puppets. You have
made the mistake of believing one of the group trolls.
I have no idea who (e-mail address removed) is, but I do know that he or
she isn't me. Nor does he or she accurately reflect my views about Mr
Navia's "contributions" to the comp.lang.c newsgroup. It is in fact the
case that the opinion of (e-mail address removed) about the actions Mr
Navia describes as having taken re GPL in the OP on this thread appears to
be diametrically opposed to my own opinion. It is a strange sock puppet
(on Usenet, at least) that disagrees 100% with his purported puppetmaster.
It appears to be fairly common practice among trolls in comp.lang.c
nowadays to accuse regular contributors of setting up sock puppets to
bolster the apparent popularity of their viewpoint. It is easy mud to
sling, as any denial can be countered with the Mandy Rice-Davies quote,
"well, he would say that, wouldn't he?" - and in the minds of fools, this
is an effective riposte. What those who believe it fail to consider is
that "he would say that" *whether or not* the accusation is true. So when
a regular contributor is charged with sock puppetry, what yougeneric would
be best advised to consider is not the nature of the attack, but rather
what yougeneric know about the attacker and what yougeneric know about the
attackee, so to speak. That is, the facts (one way or the other) are
likely to be unprovable, so all yougeneric have to go on is the characters
of those involved.
In this case, the accusations of sock puppetry have come from a
self-confessed troll (no, not you, Richard! I do not consider you to be a
troll), which tells us all we need to know about the nature of the
attacker - i.e. it is someone who has openly acknowledged that their
purpose in posting to this newsgroup is to provoke angry responses, from
which the troll presumably gets some kind of bizarre pleasure.
So - what of the attackee?
Sock puppets are used for bolstering a weak argument, usually on a matter
of opinion rather than fact (since facts are normally so easy to
establish, whereas opinions are much more susceptible to debate and
apparent popularity). The intent of a sock puppetmaster, it would appear,
is to suggest that there is more support for his views than is in fact the
case.
But, as regular readers of this newsgroup will be only too well aware, I am
not, and never have been, particularly bothered about the apparent
popularity of my views in this newsgroup. (Obviously it's pleasant for me
to find that other people whom I respect agree with me, but it's even more
pleasant when I find that they /dis/agree with me, because that means that
I'm in with a chance of learning something.) And therefore I, speaking in
my capacity as attackee, see no value whatsoever in having my views (very
imperfectly) parroted by some random, nameless third party.
In fact, I cannot recall any regular contributor whose knowledge of C I
respect (which includes you, by the way) being bothered about popularity.
We are more interested in being right than in being popular. Otherwise,
we'd all be voiding main and fflushing stdin and getsing, wouldn't we?
And therefore I treat with disbelief and disdain the accusations of trolls
that such-and-such is using sock puppets, where "such-and-such" is someone
like yourself, Keith, Jack, or others of that calibre. I find it
surprising that you do not adopt the same policy.
The obvious solution here is to treat the machinations of trolls with the
respect or contempt that yougeneric, as an independent mind, feel they
deserve.
For the record, at least as far as I can recall, I have only *ever* posted
to comp.lang.c under four names: the obvious three are "Richard
Heathfield", "rjh" (three of the four bona fide initials of my name), and
"Strangely Placed".
The last of these is, to regulars, an obvious and mildly witty reference to
a sig I've had for over eight years. I used "Strangely Placed" only very
occasionally, to post to clc when away from my usual machine (which is why
it was mildly witty, to those who appreciate such things). It was a Google
Groups account, which has almost certainly lapsed, and which for clarity's
sake I hereby announce that I will never, ever, ever use again - an easy
target for pseudosockpuppetmasters, then, but hey, any fool can forge a
header.
(And the fourth? Well, I forget the fourth, as it was for just a few
months, several years ago - I believe it was because I'd left my former
ISP, and hadn't yet gotten around to setting up a new Web site yet, but it
doesn't really matter. What does matter is that, during that time, I was
not posting under any other name.)
Again for the record: I have not, on this newsgroup or any other, ever used
a sock puppet for any reason whatsoever. Nor will I ever do so.
You, of all people, should know that I have been involved in very animated
discussions (elseUsenet) where it would have been much more tempting to
use a sock puppet than has ever been the case in comp.lang.c, and you
should also know that I did not do so (because, as you will recall from
those threads, what little support I got came from people you knew from
long acquaintance not to be sock puppets). So what you are suggesting is
against all common sense.
If you still think I'm sock-puppeting, please explain why in a direct reply
to this article (and please offer some genuine evidence to support your
claim). Otherwise, naturally I will assume your silence to indicate
acceptance ("qui tacet consentire videtur") of the points I have made in
this article.
