As noted elsewhere, I'm a "peacekeeper" in rec.games.roguelike.nethack. I LART fools who think the group is for "hax0rz". The group has become a lot cleaner now, I must admit, a lot less warez-requesting ignorant people can be seen there.

Anyway, I have noticed that the war - yes, I ocassionally refer to it as war - has had its effects on me. War is a bad word because it's not really about actually killing people... it's more of a war of wits.

Back when the d00dz were still a common sight, I was sometimes pretty stressed about the fight. I have a strange habit of keeping my mind if I feel strongly enough about something. I chose to fight, even when it was sometimes hard.

But fighting... even verbal one... makes us over-reactive. In the war, if you see a threat, you kill it.

Someone in the group was once "crying WWWWolf". The subject line alone almost made me to LART the poor fellow, but fortunately, I read the message body too and didn't make hasty conclusions.

Yet, I still feel kind of sad when one of RGRNCA attacked an innocent bystander by similiar accident. It was... as if he had shot a member of some other squad of the same company by accident, thinking enemies were coming.

I, as the leader of RGRNCA, needed to apologise to the victim. I did it both publicly and via E-mail. I must say it was a black day in RGRNCA's history. I never got his E-mail reply, and I sometimes wake up with cold sweat, hoping he's not mad at us.

...

So, folks, ::sigh:: I just want to tell you one thing. Have your ever got a -1, Troll for writing something to Slashdot that should have been moderated as +5, Funny? Have you ever gotten a writeup nuked by accident?

OK, I don't assume everyone with a Moderator bit in /. are like me and moderate As Taco Intended =) but anyway, what I want you to realize is this:

I had the power to make the Troll vanish. I needed to use it pretty often. I got tired. Everyone else in my position would have become tired over time. And when I got tired, I almost used the power to envanish something that was supposed to stay. A squadmate failed to realize the difference, and a painful accident happened.

So please, understand that the life isn't always cheerful for those who need to be exposed to the trolls and flamery all the time. My fingers are tired. My Sp33kH s0m3t1mes sounDz pr3tty strange, but I'm on medication and it should stop soon. I hope.

We're just mortals. We make mistakes, and we don't like them at all when that happens.


(Disclaimer: I'm not an E2 editor, but I'm a cheap plastic imitation of one, appearing in several other places.)

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