Thursday, April 28, 2005

Forum posts you know better than to answer...

When you hang out on bulletin boards and various forums, you quickly learn that there are people who post just to provoke the regulars. Or that there are posters that are a certain cause for irritation no matter what they write even though they really don't intend to, it is just an aspect of their nature to vex you with every breath they take, seemingly. After a while of opening the threads they've started, you begin to think "I'd better not" before you do, because you've started to see a pattern. And then, you simply stop reading their posts.

And then you have those people where you don't really need that period of learning what they stand for and why they're there. You don't need to read ten or twenty posts to see a pattern. In fact, sometimes you know just by seeing the screen name what they're up to.

Like today, when I logged on to a forum for young Norwegian Catholics to read a reply I'd been automatically notified about (great feature, btw!) and saw the name of a new user. I knew what was coming before I even clicked. I don't know... does it say more about the other poster or about me - when I actually replied to the foreseeable negative comment made by someone who called himself "Antichrist" ??? Somethings really are best left alone. Like the tooth that I chipped last week and couldn't leave alone, just had to feel it with my tongue all the time. By the time I came to the dentist the next day, my tongue was all sore. But it's fixed now. Just like good moderators keep trolls away from otherwise decent fora.

That's why I am so pleased with Catholic Online. Toothaches don't stay. And neither do I stay for more blogging, since Cecilia have a teething ache and can't seem to sleep. Good night! (But if your teeth ache from grinding them while reading my posts, blame yourself!)

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