Mike Coslo wrote in message ...
N2EY wrote:
With the different personalities involved, the games can get pretty
interesting and funny, or sometimes they can become boring and
repetitive. The MARS is Ham radio stuff is a good example of the latter.


No it isn't.*


Yow - the Mostly Steve Brian MARS argument has gotten to the point
where I can hardly hack it. YMMV!

I don't read most of it.

That was a good skit, though!

Exactly.

If a poster is the type that is trying to antagonize others - that is
to say one that is using the group in the text adventure mode - he or
she does not want to get people so angry that they don't respond. That
would be losing the game. This player will want to be antagonistic of
course, but will want to allow other posters to stay just this side of
filtering or ignoring him or her.

In some cases, yes.

Some here filter Len, but enough do not that he finds a steady stream
of willing participants in his game.

Perhaps.

Face it, he is good at it.

Not really. I have seen many other posters get the better of Mr. Anderson. It's not hard to do at all.

All I've done is present a differing opinion than his, and point out some of
his mistakes. His responses have been - predictable.

Totally predictable, in fact.

I must not be getting my point across here. This isn't about being
right. It's about the discourse. Sometimes he's right, sometimes he's
wrong, and a lot of it is just neutral as in opinion.

What isn't neutral is the undeserved abuse dealt out to others for
simply disagreeing or pointing out mistakes. But see below about the
"game".

It's fascinating how a few words of a different opinion can cause Mr.
Anderson
to produce volumes of verbiage. And how a calm, polite correction of even
one
of his errors brings such a torrent of anger and abuse.

Yes, I've had that happen.

Exactly.

It may not be what you are in here for, but
he succeeds in his game.

Sometimes.

Note this does not apply to the strange fringe postings that appear to
be personal battles, such as the one that Dave seems involved in with
some hams in his locale. That is just really wierd stuff.

Just different versions of the same game.

The game you describe is simple attention-getting behavior. It's
exactly the same as the small child who tries all sorts of behaviors
in order to get adult (typically parental) attention. That the
attention takes the form of punishments doesn't matter to the child as
much as the attention itself.

A variation is to get the adult/parent to lose control, start
screaming and yelling, etc., as a way of getting the child and adult
on the same behavioral level.

Much if not most of what Len does with his newsgroup postings here is
exactly the same thing.

You may think he is "good at it" but the reverse is true. Compare how
much response he gets for the amount of posting he does. Or if you
want to be specific, note how many of my posts elicit a response from
him, and how many of his posts elicit a response from me. Note also
the length, content and tone of the responses.

"Good at it"? Not at all.

Oh, that other one is some pretty severe stuff. Between the perverse
accusations, the threats, the obscenities and the stuff that just might
end up as courtroom evidence, this stuff is tame by comparison.

And the "game" sometimes extends
beyond the newsgroup. For example, some time back I and some others received
several unsolicited emails from Mr. Anderson, with attachments that were
allegedly pictures. I deleted them unopened, as is standard procedure for
unsolicited attachments. I found out later they were supposedly a picture of
his commercial radiotelephone license and a picture that included adult male
nudity. Of course this is second hand information because I simply deleted the
emails, but you have to kinda wonder why such Mr. Anderson would send me such
things.

I've heard about that one.

Exactly.

You
(or anyone here) know what will happen when you rise to the bait, you
know pretty much what the resulting exchange will be, and yet it is
irresistable.

Naw, it's totally resistible. And predictable.

And yet you are now involved once more!

Only by choice.

Well, sure! Steve is involved by choice too!

Yep. There are good choices and not-so-good choices.

73 de Jim, N2EY