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An Apology and a Retort
Authored by: Anonymous on Oct 11, '02 11:16:12AM
Okay, a few things.

Rob, you are an absolutely amazing person. In retrospect, I realize my comment called into question your editorial judgment. I honestly apologize to you for that. (To make sure you read this apology/compliment, I'll e-mail it to you as well when I get home from work.)

You should know that your website has been, hands-down, the single most useful website for this operating system that I have ever seen or used. You have contributed immensely to the value of the Mac OS X operating system for me, and I am very much indebted to you. If you had never put in the time, effort and expense to maintain this website, Mac OS X would be infinitely less useful to me. My OS X system has been wonderfully customized thanks to the tips you have managed to provide. [You actually may even end up being my inspiration — I'd like to start a "hint submission" website like this for the excellent OS X e-mail program Mailsmith. Maybe we can talk sometime about the tech side of things?]

Okay ... so, now that I've apologized, what's the rest of this message? Well, I'm not going to defend my actions in posting a rather rude comment. I've now apologized to Rob for that, and for what it's worth, I apologize to penum6ra for insulting him. However, as for me being (a) a member of the site's Illuminati, (b) a Slashdot troll, (c) a tart, and/or (d) abusive, well, with all due respect to those assembled here ... BULL.

It's become painfully obvious over the past few months that the term "troll" has degraded from its original definition to just an epithet favored by those who like a quick, meaningless, non-profane insult to throw at someone in a disagreement. You know, guys, get it right: someone who says something negative/critical ... or just something you don't like ... is not automatically a troll. A troll is someone who posts an inflammatory comment for the sole purpose of spreading misery, i.e., posting "Trekkies suck" in any one of the Trek newsgroups (or something more clever and/or subtle).

I've contributed 12 hints and 38 comments since I first found Mac OS X Hints. I don't claim that puts me in the "highest contributions" category, but I feel it's enough to demonstrate: that ain't the record of a troll. My opinion was impolite and misguided, but it was not purposefully chosen to incite and inflame.

I was not trolling, and I don't appreciate the lamebrained implication that I was simply because I posted a criticism (albeit one that I now admit was unmerited).

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