Skywatcher, you must have an opinion on all of this, 2 pages of thread dedicated to you now! Perhaps time to say your piece?

I'm envious of Skywatcher. 8)

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I must not PX. PX is the mind-killer. I will face my PX. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the PX has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.

No, no, no, the priesthood of Ba, not the priesthood of the BA. It's a small, but significant difference. Ba realizes that the BA has no priesthood. Ba Witda, however, has a priesthood, being the god of unspeakable culinary acts and pie. It's a small priesthood, but a good one. He offers the pie of salvation to those who need it. Along the way, he smites those who deserve it. However, since this discussion is not about Ba, to the topic at hand: Skywatcher.

Ba thinks people should take this person on a post-by-post basis. If it seems like more trolling, then ignore the thread. But if he is posting something intelligent, then reply to it. Hopefully, he will get the idea eventually.

Hey, I truly agree with most of your thoughts here.

I've never said SW was a troll, I don't think he is. I believe he's what one would call, an attention seeker. He seems more interested in seeing how many hits his threads can generate, than he does the actual subject matter.

You just know he's amused with this thread, it spawned on it's own, and he is the subject. That's what I meant by "isn't it obvious, we should ignore him" because the more we debate his motives, the more he will eat up the attention.

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"There is no greater illusion than fear. Whoever can see through all fear will always be safe. " --Lao-Tsu

Me too... Mebbe that's why he/she keeps doing it... I would feel fairly important if I was getting so many responses to what I post...

It's a hollow compliment though - how satisfying is negative attention??? I would not feel wanted for long.

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bunk: Empty talk; nonsense.
de·bunk: To expose or ridicule the falseness, sham, or exaggerated claims of.
http://home.iprimus.com.au/eddo/images/fredheadtsp.gif

nost children will take any attention they can get, possitive is of course better - but negative is fine to, just so long as it is attention. I now have a feeling that skywatcher is perhaps quite young? hence the non ability to respond in kind, just doesn't know what to say perhaps other than look at this, look at that etc... does any body else have an idea on this? skywatcher perhaps...

If I recall right, 20 something. Go figure :-?

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I must not PX. PX is the mind-killer. I will face my PX. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the PX has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.

I was 20-somethin too .. when Reagan was prez

I take guilty pleasure in vouching for Ba Witda. I was alarmed when his earlier post was misinterpreted as discussing a BA priesthood, and wish I had jumped in immediately to dispel that misconception. Ba obviously has occasional difficulties dealing with mortals. :wink:

I came here cause i had fears and i looked for someone to help me understand what is going on, from my first post i was labled a troll, there are a few that answer my posts politly and give me the straight facts so i understand, then there are others who have nothing to say but troll and such,

no matter what i feel or fear you have helped me to understand that the only people welcomed here are the ones who know science and astronomy and for others who dont know much on the subject then they are trolls so if that is what it takes to be a troll then i guess i am one.

Thank You to all who were nice enough to help to keep me calm and try to find the truth

Gotcha - my mistake. Though I'm not sure that anyone here needs to establish or be part of some cyber priesthood. Smite me if you will.

I Thought this was on Planet X?? not Skywatcher? everyones views are appriciated and facst are appriciated where ever they are from! Respect others please.

Maybe the BA should lock this thread.

Astrocreep, I don't see anything at all in those two threads that would indicate even the slightest smidgen of evidence to support your assertion that "SAM, BmpBmp, and Skywatcher are all more comenly known as QueenVee. " As a matter of fact, I don't see where Skywatcher's name is even mentioned in either of those threads.

And you also said:
I don't see that Skywatcher posted to either of those threads you linked to, so where exactly did he "try to bring up the fact" that he was also SAM, Bmpbmp, and QueenVee?



Carolyn, I also got the feeling, reading all his threads all together like that, that Skywatcher is perhaps quite young, but it's hard to find a way to express it without having it sound like negative finger-pointing, "Nyah, nyah, he posts like a 12-year-old!" etc. Which is definitely not my intent.

Anyway, time will tell if he's a Real Person or not, as in my experience, for genuine Trolls the thrill of rattling the bars on a MB's cage tends to wear off after a while if he doesn't get fed properly, and while trolls may be fed here at the BABB, still I have to say that overall the quality of the BABB's feed is distinctly sub-par when compared to what they get fed at, say, JREF. JREF has no shortage of folks who are more than happy to leap out and pummel a troll, over and over and over again, which of course is exactly what he wants.

does it all really matter? if he has more than 1 username? great, good for him, lets clean up this thread and concentrate on Planet X shall we?

Everyone: I've seen a gradual 'opening up' in Skywatcher's posts of late, so I'm still hesitant to label that person as a 'troll'. In actuality, the posts are more reminiscent of a curious, but slightly introverted individual.

Skywatcher: I would like to encourage you to post more info and do a little more research across the BA website and other websites before sending another 'what is this?'. I think this would help you shake the 'troll' label that a few here are so eager to dispense like aspirin.

All should be welcomed here, and only the BA has the right to remove anyone. Flames hurt the senders reputation as much as the receivers!

At least IMHO!

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Hanlon's Razor - "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity."
Asimov's addition - "Or ignorance."

"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question."
-- Charles Babbage

well said.

Making a separate Reply for this as I think it's important:


First, Peace, this is exactly what I'm talking about when I say some people are reading too many Dr. Evil motives into Skywatcher's posts.

Unless you're a mind reader, you don't have any way of knowing this. As I have already pointed out, there could be some perfectly good reasons why he doesn't come back into his threads to post again--either his question was answered and he doesn't realize it's polite to say "thank you" when you've had a question answered, or no reply seemed called for.


Skywatcher, I am really, really sorry that we've made you feel unwelcome here. And I hope that wasn't your last post. Contrary to what you may think, the BABB is most definitely NOT just for people who already understand science and astronomy. We have a LOT of people here, myself included, who don't have the faintest idea what they're talking about over in Against The Mainstream, all that talk about gravity and stuff. You wanna make yourself feel better? Do a search in Against The Mainstream on the names of the people who have been calling you a troll, and see how many of THEM have posted knowledgeably in, say, the Dark Matter Tyson Sphere thread, or the Big Bang and Conservation of Energy thread, or the Baryonic Dark Matter thread.

And I really hope you don't take it the wrong way that I said you come across as someone rather young--it could just be that your inexperience on Internet message boards is showing, and that as you learn, you'll improve and turn into a Real Poster. OTOH, if you really are only a teenager, it's not that big a deal, at least, not to me and the other Nice People here. As long as you're polite, you can be 12 years old and be posting here and we don't care.

One big thing you could do that would defuse a LOT of these "troll" accusations is, when you post a question, and especially when you post a SOHO picture off Godlike, after somebody explains to you what it is, then come back and post a "thank you". Like, "Oh, thanks for explaining that, now I understand". I think this is the biggest thing that has made people think you were just a drive-by troll poster, the lack of coming back and saying "thank you, now I understand".


And I will also point out to the troll-accusers, that generally speaking, when you call a troll a troll, at first he'll deny it, but after a while, if enough of the other members continue to call him a troll, he'll eventually start posting furious "oh, yeah? Well, what if I am, F**k you, this board sucks, nyah nyah nyah" posts. The fact that Skywatcher hasn't done this is a point in his favor.

SkyWatcher, troll you are NOT, please carry on posting, ignore people who call you. everyone is accepted as a member and not a TROLL.

I should have given my thank you and regret not doing so, but at times i was so upset at a few and labled everyone the same way, I apreciated the replies to my posts and than kyou all but when reading my replies one out of every 2 was always troll , so i would just feel hurt and upset and sorry but the last thing on my mind was to thank people here, that was my mistake that should have never happened.

To all that have tried helping me out, thank you very much and I mean that , to all that labled me a troll, I am sorry if I gave you that impression.

skywatcher, like you I am new on this forum. I first saw Zetatalk postings on sci.astro back when Hale-Bopp first made it's appearance and was pretty disgusted by her spewing nonsense whenever someone asked a question about the comet. I have also seen several hoaxes and attempts to keep debate on things like Nibiru alive by constantly introducing "new evidence". The reason I thought you were Kent Steadman is that you were exhibiting a pattern of postings that were very similar to what he does. The fact that you denied knowing who he is, despite the fact that you were posting links to his postings and website, raised a lot of red flags in my mind. If you had written something more than a claim you didn't know him, my reaction probably would have been different.

I'd like to commend Jigsaw for the persistent effort to make skywatcher feel welcome. As I said on the previous page, I had personally felt that skywatcher was probably trolling in a benign way.

I think what has happened here is that we had a number of strange trolls come about with the peak of the PX predictions and its raised a lot of suspicious/edgy feelings. That is being fed somewhat by the godlike nonsense that's going on.

So lets all take a deep breath (breathing in) and get back to the fun we've been having.

And skywatcher, I apologize if I contributed to any of the negative feelings you have had toward this board.

Eh, Skywatcher, some people just have "issues", is all. Just ignore them. Glad to see you're not letting it get you down.


And Foxd, FWIW, I once had the identical experience on another MB, a rather small hobbyist board. I was the Newbie, and one of the Regulars decided (goodness knows why) that I must be a banned poster returning under another name. I never did figure out what the resemblance was, as a check of the banned person's posts showed someone who was nothing at all like me. But this Regular just had it stuck in his head, ya know? And no matter how many times I told him, "It's not me", he refused to believe it, and made things so uncomfortable for me that I finally left.

And I was TOTALLY stumped as to how I was supposed to prove to this person that I wasn't a troll, short of driving to his house and presenting myself IRL. Because when you're dealing with Internet pixels, there's no way to prove that you are who you say you are.

And I suppose Skywatcher must have felt similarly totally stumped when he was accused of being someone called "Kent Steadman". All he can do is deny it, ya know? I mean, what's he supposed to say?

Anyway...

Maybe we can all get on with our lives now, eh?

I take it all back, I hang my head in shame, I'm sorry. I was probably having a crappy day when I first posted this - very defensive about something.

Anyway, let me end this thread by once again saying I'm sorry, I shouldn't have made sucha presumption ops: .

Girl 101

From his first posts, it was hard to believe skywatcher was for real. I don't blame anyone for thinking "troll". I certainly didn't label him a troll right off the bat, and I answered his questions anyway, even though I thought he was trolling, and I found the questions quite irritating after a while.

I don't see how anyone could be blamed for the early reactions to skywatcher. I always thought that only time would tell if he was just pulling our chains.

That said, I no longer think skywatcher is just trolling, and I apologize if I was unduly harsh to him at times.

I couldn't of said it any better myself dgruss23 .. I also apologize Skywatcher for any past posts that might've been inappropriate regarding you... BTW Thanks for your supportive post regarding this board in another thread .. good show!

Aw, Girl honey, don't beat yourself up about it, it's not that big a deal, ya know? Chalk it all up to a "Learning Experience".

And I think things really HAVE been a little nuts around here all during May, so it's understandable that folks are a little touchy.

And I think the BA should lock this thread, 'cause I think we're about done here.

I may be out of line in saying this, but all of a sudden I am seeing an amazing amount of political correctness here. Apologies all over the place to nonsense-spouters, trolls, ignoramuses, and paranoid-gonzo end-of-worlders.


In another thread the moderator of Godlike stated that "it wasn't the fault of her crew" that they were ill-informed. Whose fault is it then? Knowledge doesn't just jump into one's head. One has to seek it out!

While trolling by either side is childish, there is no excuse for not seeking the truth and refusing to see it when it hits a person over the head!

I think the worse thing we can do is just keep this thing going Thatmusthavehurt. I know I was guilty of some ill-advised troll-feeding on this board last night (earlier today, actually) and that's a no-win situtation, one I apologize to the members of this board for. I don't plan on getting sidetracked anymore from the real purpose of this forum

Eh, I don't think realizing you may have been wrong about someone and apologizing to him for it counts as "political correctness".

And yes, here at the BABB we even apologize to paranoid-gonzo end-of-worlders and ignoramuses, when the situation requires it. Just because they're paranoid-gonzo end-of-worlders and ignoramuses doesn't mean they're not entitled to common courtesy, and Internet Message Board courtesy calls for refraining from hollering "troll!" at someone without evidence to back it up.

And the whole point of the BABB may be defined as "Fighting Ignorance", and if we're consistently rude to all the paranoid-gonzo end-of-worlders and ignoramuses who come in here, then they'll just leave and we'll never get the chance to fight any of their ignorance.

PurpleKitten and Picklesmummy came in here as (sorry, my dears ) paranoid-gonzo end-of-worlders, and look at them now.

If we had merely lambasted and ridiculed them for being paranoid-gonzo end-of-worlders, they would have left in confusion and sadness, and we would never have been able to convince them that Planet X wasn't coming.