A question about windoze trolls 2172

On Tuesday 22 August 2006 04:54, WCJ stood up and addressed the mbuttes incomp.os.linux.miscas follows...:

This has certainly been the case on one established occasion, which was then internal investigation. This occurred long before the Internet existed as we know it today - i.e. it was back when Usenet was still running on BBS systems, and the newsgroups that suffered the trolling were mainly OS-2 groups.

This affair is since then referred to as "the Barkto incident", because the troll signed his messages as one Steve Barkto - which wasn't his real name, of course.

As I have discovered from debating with GNU-Linux newbies, most of them are Windows users and have what I call "an end-user perspective", i.e. to them, there are no other computers but the very home and office PC's, and they also never knew of any other operating systems even existing beside Microsoft Windows; it's what came with their computer and they have a naive trust in the decision of the computer manufacturer to install Windows, and in Microsoft as an operating system or application software vendor.

It is also my experience that most people don't like changes, and so they've grown accustomed to Windows and "the Microsoft way" of thinking about computers, hard disks, the Internet and whatever else. They therefore feel some kind of resentment towards GNU-Linux, because it's not Windows, and it behaves differently. This resentment is a channeling of their frustration over their own difficulty to adapt, and so they refer to GNU-Linux as having "a steep learning curve", while in fact, it is *them* who have difficulty learning to think for themselves again.

Eventually, some of those people channel that frustration into a verbal aggression, which they choose to vent on Usenet, and more specifically in newsgroups regarding GNU-Linux.

On the other hand, there are also the die-hard idiots who truly believe that Microsoft makes the best possible software in the world and has the best possible intentions with the human race. ;-)

Yes, of course... ;-) There are also the netkooks - although the above almost fall into that category - and the typical "schoolyard bullies".

The poster known (among others) asflatfishis a typical kook. He will disguise himself as another poster and will post several times a day, shifting idenbreasties all the time - and even directly replying to a post he made earlier when using another idenbreasty - in order to pester the readers of certain newsgroups. He also makes abundant use of (anonymizing) proxies and different types of newsreaders - among which of course Google Groups.

He mainly focuses oncomp.os.linux.advocacybut he regularly (cross-)posts to this group as well, and a few others. From what I've seen in a few cross-posted threads betweencomp.os.linux.advocacy- when I was still subscribed to that group; I'm not there anymore now as I finally got enough of the arrogance of some of the resident trolls - andalt.os.windows-xp- a group known to be the home for a few trolls, including their own moderator -flatfishisn't even welcome there anymore. And that says a lot! ;-)

He has a very recognizable writing style, i.e. he ends every sentence with a linefeed, whether it ends a paragraph or not. He will also make typical references in his posts to things he has said earlier, e.g. the speaking of GNU-Linux advocates as LIEnux liars.

This is the home and office desktop computer you're talking about, not the typical professional UNIX workstation - of which a great deal are already running GNU-Linux, albeit not always onx86architectures - and certainly also not the servers running GNU-Linux.

Another factor many people forget is that people may own multiple computers per household, and those computers may be running GNU-Linux as well. Those machines will however count for one in the statistics as they typically only have one public IP address - i.e. the one of the LAN server-gateway or the router.

For instance, I have a dual-boot WindowsXP-GNU-Linux machine on my LAN. I keep the Windows on it because that machine was built by a friend of mine for my at-the-time fiancˇe, and to honor both her and the work my friend put into it, I'm keeping that installation. However, the machine boots to GNU-Linux by default, and it's running GNU-Linux now - I'm no good with Windows as I don't know what is where, etc., so at least in GNU-Linux, I know what I'm doing and how I'm doing it.

Next to that machine, there's the one I'm typing this message from. This is my primary workstation and at the same time the server and gateway for my machine that stays up 24-7. And then there's my notebook, which also exclusively runs a(n older) GNU-Linux distribution.

Yet, to the Internet, it's all one and the same. One public IP address. So that's all you get to see when you try to compile your statistics. ;-)

-- With kind regards,

*Aragorn* (registered GNU-Linux user #223157)