Jeff,

Your outrage is well placed and quite understandable, but quitting the list because one person has overstepped the bounds, seems to me a serious overreaction. My approach to the Brad issue (and now to the person who overstepped the boundaries of netiquette even further) is the one that several ave suggested: No response & hit the delete button! As I've said several times on this list, the only safe and sure response to the devil is silence.

Let me urge you to stay on the list and ignore the negativists.

Paul D.

"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction" (_Twelfth Night_ 3.4.127-128).

From: Jeff Wiemelt <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Monday, April 13, 2009 10:31:44 AM
Subject: Re: Feeding the "Brad" troll: Just don't do it!

Well this is a new low, isn't it?

I've been following this list for, what, 10 years now? I even used to contribute once in while. I've seen lots of bullies come and go--enough to make me decide I didn't want to be an active contributor anymore. Brad isn't the biggest bully I've seen, just the most obnoxious.

Still, posting this guy's personal information (correct or not) steps way beyond any line I've seen crossed before. Not even Brad deserves that. It just isn't done. Ever.

So now I actually feel ashamed to be a list member at all, like some idle voyeur who's snuck a peak at one too many domestic fights in the house next door. Now I know where it all ends.

Enough then. I'll send in my unsuscribe request. Craig, if you ever want to get the other old list going again (I worry about publicizing the name here), then please let me know. I do miss that smaller but far more respectful, professional, productive list.

Jeff

Dr. Jeff Wiemelt
Director of Freshman English
Editor, Journal of College Writing
English, Box 10861
Southeastern Louisiana University
Hammond, LA 70402
985-549-5761

----- Original Message -----

From: [log in to unmask] href="mailto:[log in to unmask]" target=_blank rel=nofollow ymailto="mailto:[log in to unmask]">Richard Wallis

To: [log in to unmask] href="mailto:[log in to unmask]" target=_blank rel=nofollow ymailto="mailto:[log in to unmask]">[log in to unmask]

Sent: Sunday, April 12, 2009 12:07 PM

Subject: Feeding the "Brad" troll: Just don't do it!

Surely you all recognize by now the actions of an Internet troll. Why do you continue to engage it in discussion?

Internet trolls thrive on calling attention to themselves and to their own peculiar ideas. They will never change their tactics, and they will never concede anything. Every mailing list seems to have one or two of these sociopaths. They enjoy the frustration and infuriation that their endlessly repeated postings cause.

Brad Johnston, who lives in Warrenton, Virginia, is 78 years old (born on December 18). He is not a linguist; in fact, he was probably never an English teacher. He apparently doesn't have a graduate degree. He was in the class of 1952 at Wabash College (Indiana) and a member of something called the Sphinx Club there. He attended Shortridge High School in Indianapolis.

I cannot begin to understand why respected teachers and linguists continue to respond at all to him. You are giving him the attention and "respect" that he so desperately craves -- and that he apparently lacks elsewhere in his sad little life.

Don't feed the troll!!

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