Oh dear, am I a troll???
I had the most weird online encounter a few days ago and what I found out today makes me feel weirder...
The end result was for the first time ever I got blocked by a flickr user, who earlier threatened to report me to flickr admins as a flicker 'abuser'. Hmm... maybe I have been really really bad.
I don't know her real name but this is the lady's flickr profile and blog and she seems to be really pissed with me. To be fair I was really pissed off by her too :-)
And here's the story: Some weeks back I stumble upon a photo on flickr which seemed to be taken from the top of the Adam's peak (Samanala mountain/Sripada) showing it's unique triangular shaped shadow. In the description of this photo and the subsequent commentary, this lady was stating (not implying mind you) that this was a mystery, i.e. 'no one knows what causes this shadow'. My many years of science education just didn't let me walk away... it was screaming for the sake of sanity and I had to write a comment. My first short comment got a response which prompted me to write a longer response, then an even longer response and I was nowhere nearer in making any sense to this self proclaimed 'research geek', 'buddhist' & 'indologist' from Tennesee, USA who lives in Nepal after coming to India to learn Bharathanatyam 5yrs ago. Since she blocked me and deleted my comments, they no longer appear on her flickr page but I have a copy of that exchange on a discussion thread on the 'Sri Lankan Beauty' flickr group here. Lucky I copied it before things got ugly, otherwise my words of wisdom would have disappeared forever, deleted by a mislead soul :-) The whole assertion by her was absurd, and using Buddhism and Asian beliefs to prop up her view was just not acceptable to me. Light source -> Object -> Shadow... duh!
Though she didn't show any sign of yielding her view, she decided to ignore my final comment on that thread, and I left it at that. In the mean time I found this article about Sri Lanka written by her. For someone who calls herself a 'research geek' I found the factual inaccuracies quite glaring and was most of the time breaking out laughing with a 'lady you got it soooo wrong!', especially about her commentary about riding in buses. I found her views about Sri Lanka to be skewed with prejudice and from a naively arrogant point of view. I am still wondering why she felt it necessary to mention about being able to wear a t-shirt without a bra in Kandy.... hmm can anyone help me out here? Is there a hint of "...ooh these savages are so well house trained that they don't feel the need to grope me anymore..."?
Now comes the final chapter: I feel the urge to leave a brief comment on another photo on her stream. It was a photo with a couple of novice monks (Samaneras) in Kandy and she was referring to them as 'monklets' and 'baby monks'. I wrote a brief comment pointing out that they are not normally referred as such and that they are in fact 'novice monks' and gave a brief description about the ordination process of Theravada Buddhist monks. She responded with a haughty "I know, I am Buddhist". This gave me some insight about how "Buddhist" she was. Buddhism as far as I know is not a 'membership' religion. Though different people have their own views, I personally don't consider it to be a religion in the first place. To me it's a philosophy, and a very insightful one at that. But this wasn't the comment that took the cake :-) In her description of the photo she mentioned the LKR100 admission fee at the temple was steep! I couldn't resist mentioning the exchange rate between a US dollar and a SL rupee and say it was a 'bit pathetic' is American tourists start complaining about a 90c fee. I honestly (at the time of writing) didn't mean to say she was 'pathetic' (it may have come across that way, in hindsight, since she was American!) but was referring to the hoards of tourist that usually flock to these sites. However, she retorted with vengeance (very Buddhist...) :-) . First she claimed it was racist to have two different admission fees for foreigners and locals. She just doesn't seem to grasp the economical disparity between the 'West' and developing countries such as SL. My view was more along the lines that the higher admission fee is the 'normal' fee but the locals are allowed a heavily subsidized entry fee because they just can't afford anything more and not the other way around where the foreigners are overcharged. Second part of her comment threatened reporting me to flickr admins for abuse! Her response sans my comments (which were deleted by her) can be seen here .
Since it looked as if she had taken offense in my 'pathetic' comment, I deleted it myself and wrote her a flickr mail (that's what she refers to as private mail) apologizing if I caused offense, which was not meant. However my second half of the e-mail was a bit caustic (yes I've been a bad boy). I told her in no uncertain terms what I think about her prejudiced and skewed view of Sri Lanka and it's culture. In response she had blocked me from her flickr account :-) Serves me right...
I've been called many things in my life, some I am proud of, some not so but I've never been called a "angry young man" before :-D. Well of course, to stay in character I banned her and kicked out her photos from the flickr group I administer when I found that she had blocked me :-D
So now does all this mean I am an internet troll?
Edit: After the initial adrenaline rush subsided I unblocked her from the flickr group mentioned above... :-)
The end result was for the first time ever I got blocked by a flickr user, who earlier threatened to report me to flickr admins as a flicker 'abuser'. Hmm... maybe I have been really really bad.
I don't know her real name but this is the lady's flickr profile and blog and she seems to be really pissed with me. To be fair I was really pissed off by her too :-)
And here's the story: Some weeks back I stumble upon a photo on flickr which seemed to be taken from the top of the Adam's peak (Samanala mountain/Sripada) showing it's unique triangular shaped shadow. In the description of this photo and the subsequent commentary, this lady was stating (not implying mind you) that this was a mystery, i.e. 'no one knows what causes this shadow'. My many years of science education just didn't let me walk away... it was screaming for the sake of sanity and I had to write a comment. My first short comment got a response which prompted me to write a longer response, then an even longer response and I was nowhere nearer in making any sense to this self proclaimed 'research geek', 'buddhist' & 'indologist' from Tennesee, USA who lives in Nepal after coming to India to learn Bharathanatyam 5yrs ago. Since she blocked me and deleted my comments, they no longer appear on her flickr page but I have a copy of that exchange on a discussion thread on the 'Sri Lankan Beauty' flickr group here. Lucky I copied it before things got ugly, otherwise my words of wisdom would have disappeared forever, deleted by a mislead soul :-) The whole assertion by her was absurd, and using Buddhism and Asian beliefs to prop up her view was just not acceptable to me. Light source -> Object -> Shadow... duh!
Though she didn't show any sign of yielding her view, she decided to ignore my final comment on that thread, and I left it at that. In the mean time I found this article about Sri Lanka written by her. For someone who calls herself a 'research geek' I found the factual inaccuracies quite glaring and was most of the time breaking out laughing with a 'lady you got it soooo wrong!', especially about her commentary about riding in buses. I found her views about Sri Lanka to be skewed with prejudice and from a naively arrogant point of view. I am still wondering why she felt it necessary to mention about being able to wear a t-shirt without a bra in Kandy.... hmm can anyone help me out here? Is there a hint of "...ooh these savages are so well house trained that they don't feel the need to grope me anymore..."?
Now comes the final chapter: I feel the urge to leave a brief comment on another photo on her stream. It was a photo with a couple of novice monks (Samaneras) in Kandy and she was referring to them as 'monklets' and 'baby monks'. I wrote a brief comment pointing out that they are not normally referred as such and that they are in fact 'novice monks' and gave a brief description about the ordination process of Theravada Buddhist monks. She responded with a haughty "I know, I am Buddhist". This gave me some insight about how "Buddhist" she was. Buddhism as far as I know is not a 'membership' religion. Though different people have their own views, I personally don't consider it to be a religion in the first place. To me it's a philosophy, and a very insightful one at that. But this wasn't the comment that took the cake :-) In her description of the photo she mentioned the LKR100 admission fee at the temple was steep! I couldn't resist mentioning the exchange rate between a US dollar and a SL rupee and say it was a 'bit pathetic' is American tourists start complaining about a 90c fee. I honestly (at the time of writing) didn't mean to say she was 'pathetic' (it may have come across that way, in hindsight, since she was American!) but was referring to the hoards of tourist that usually flock to these sites. However, she retorted with vengeance (very Buddhist...) :-) . First she claimed it was racist to have two different admission fees for foreigners and locals. She just doesn't seem to grasp the economical disparity between the 'West' and developing countries such as SL. My view was more along the lines that the higher admission fee is the 'normal' fee but the locals are allowed a heavily subsidized entry fee because they just can't afford anything more and not the other way around where the foreigners are overcharged. Second part of her comment threatened reporting me to flickr admins for abuse! Her response sans my comments (which were deleted by her) can be seen here .
Since it looked as if she had taken offense in my 'pathetic' comment, I deleted it myself and wrote her a flickr mail (that's what she refers to as private mail) apologizing if I caused offense, which was not meant. However my second half of the e-mail was a bit caustic (yes I've been a bad boy). I told her in no uncertain terms what I think about her prejudiced and skewed view of Sri Lanka and it's culture. In response she had blocked me from her flickr account :-) Serves me right...
I've been called many things in my life, some I am proud of, some not so but I've never been called a "angry young man" before :-D. Well of course, to stay in character I banned her and kicked out her photos from the flickr group I administer when I found that she had blocked me :-D
So now does all this mean I am an internet troll?
Edit: After the initial adrenaline rush subsided I unblocked her from the flickr group mentioned above... :-)
posted by Navinda at 6:20 AM
3 Comments:
Since you asked for it,... here you are! you angry young man, you!!
nK:
it was screaming for the sake of sanity and I had to write a comment.
It's always a good idea to follow the example of Abe Lincoln,... go ahead and write the letter when you are pissed off. But don't post it. Most of the times when we are feeling strongly about some thing, we insert between the lines, more then what we intend. And in this case "sensitive" Americans take it little bit too much personally. Especially for those who are untrained in science,... your reply might sound like excessively cynical.
nK
lady you got it soooo wrong!
This attitude,...! Well she IS wrong. But she is just a tourist. An American at that!! I'd just gently point out some facts, but besides that... if they don't get it, they don't get it.
Oh, about the comments on her view on charging 100LKR fee... well, I think she does have a point. Surprisingly I have noticed, Americans DO count their pennies! You'll see average American sacrificing quality for quantity any day! (well, not quite.. but close enough, hehe :-p ).
Alright, so here is the bottom line. You nK, were misfortunate enough to interact with a person who is diametrically opposite from you. Little annoyances lead to a big thing in the end. That doesn't make you a troll, nor makes her stupid. I personally think you should allow her in the pool. Its better to have her comments addressed here, than to be swallowed whole some where else.
Most importantly, don't loose sleep over it. Its nothing really.
r-z
Hey,
Wanted to take some time to write this.
Well let me first tell something light. I have had many "good" experiences with US tourists both in Amsterdam and Rome. It is quite easy to spot one. There are very confused and excessively complaining and even so stupid not to be able to operate a ticket machine to buy tickets to trams, metro etc... Quite funny :D , like just as they leave the US they are like totally unable to fend for themselves. I actually feel sorry for them :D even my friends in EU also told me this "phenomenon" :)
But now for nK, yeah you have this "thing" of trying to prove "your point" no matter what. Which I don't see as a very wise thing. Because in some occasions it is best to leave it alone, than going on and on trying to prove the point. As r-z said, "if they don't get it, they don't get it". So next time don't bother about trying to prove your point. Just a waste of time and key strokes :)
He he it is exactly what I did about the "purist" topic. So do like what I did. Give it once or maybe twice if not... just give up. Cos nothing is gained just going on and on about it.
--Upali...
If you have to ask the question (am I a troll?) there is a very good chance that the answer is Yes.
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