Posted on July 26, 1999. (Note : the passages relevant here are excerpted below, slightly revised for context).

As silly as it was, when sites that included a profane expression or two were seemingly being equated with porn sites, many of us, as usual, had the opportunity to witness far sillier things. When I heard Ronin, on alt.religion.wicca, claiming to be a 700 year old retired vampire killer, my thought was "stop the presses, here's our winner". This man had to be our loon of the week. How wrong I was, as I soon found out.

Raven Blackbane, this week, made an allusion to this page, specifically to the "Tempest" section, in a followup to a post of mine entitled "Let's clear the air, Shez - evidence you lied". Basically, it was the Loki files, downloaded and put together in one file.

Question: .. "Why would you do that?"
.. Answer: ... click here

The group went insane.

Lending credence to the theory that parrots can develop typing skills, an endless line of people complained about my dredging up this bit of ancient history, practically reiterating what Shez had to say on the subject. Confronted with unshakable evidence against the version of the facts offered by their ally (confirmable by point and click), instead of answering the argument made, they tried to side step it, all with the same argument. "What sort of crazy person dredges this stuff up after all of this time has passed. Are you stuck in a time warp?"

"But kids, your peerless leader has been commenting on it and visibly seeking revenge for it during the entire time, and none of you seemed to have any problem with this", would have to be my response. As I pointed out the double standard, without being so naive as to ask for the reason for its presence. The man who responded to a documentation of the truth, as if such was a form of abuse, by asking "can't we all get along" said it all, by his actions. This is cowardice. But cowardice of a very specific sort - one that we have come to expect.

This didn't come as a surprise. If there is one thing that has come to characterize the active participants on Usenet more than anything else, it has been a willingness to discard common sense mores and allow the group consensus to define the norms by which all comments and actions are judged, thus leaving that consensus unexamined. In fact, that willingness to go along to get along, has been defined to be part of Netiquette - a respecting of the "rule" that holds that one shouldn't be making posts "out of keeping with the tone of the group".

One can't expect good sense to come out of dumb luck. The result of this sort of self-righteous conformity is that people can be capable of arguing the most idiotic points and taking part in the most unbelievable outrages, merely because everyone else is doing it. The fashionability of the absurdities in the moment, protects them from criticism. But, what if they don't remain fashionable? The custom that holds that nothing is to be remembered for too long, if it is respected, insures that today's insanity will not be a thing that one need worry about impacting one's reputation, tomorrow. One can simply forget that it ever happened.

When people do what I did, what they're saying is "Deal's off, guys. The rules have changed. If you're part of the 'in crowd' today, and do something stupid or reprehensible to fit in, you won't get away with it forever. It will come back to haunt you. The only question is when". For some of the more prominent regulars, that would be something to worry about. Our hackers and trolls and cabal members (oh my!) haven't been living lives online (or, probably offline either) that they'd really want to have subjected to scrutiny, and alt.pagan is troll central.

And thus the fears, and a few of the jeers I mentioned above. It isn't this article, itself, that upsets people. This is an obscure little web site, and likely to remain so. What upsets some, is the idea of such a site, because it is the end of their way of life.

Maybe two or three people will see this, and go "hey, we can do this, too". And then, a few more people pick up the idea from each of them, and so on. It's a lot easier than posting rebuttals to the same lies over and over. Just write your account of the events - once - post it on one of your free web pages, put the appropriate url(s) in your .sig file, and never worry about it again. Given the availability of hot links, it's a lot more persuasive, too. Before you know it, trolling won't be as much fun (or as effective) as it used to be, because it will be so easy to see through.

But we've got a prize to give out! True, going along to get along is the Usenet way, and nothing out of the ordinary. But this week we got to see it taken to an extreme rarely achieved, with a degree of cluelessly indignant self-righteousness, that would have made the old advocates of alt.support.boy-lovers swell with fatherly pride for this new generation of trolls, if only they could be out of prison to see it. That fact deserves a little recognition.

So, who won the loon of the week award? Alt.pagan, and its supporters on alt.religion.wicca. These people speak with one voice, and seem invariably to be of one mind. So, why not view them as being one person? And lately, that person seems to be Shez, a strong contender for this prize on any week. Congratulations, kids, you've worked hard to win this award, and you've earned it. Now get lost.

Let's return to Tempest In A Teapot.