Chevdo
August 31st 06, 03:26 AM
* * *
rec.audio.pro 'Elephant in the Room' Cronymob FAQ Version 3.5
last update: July 21th, 2006
written by Chevdo, supreme survivor of cronymob abuse
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elephant_in_the_room
"The elephant in the room (also elephant in the living room, elephant
in the corner, elephant on the dinner table, elephant in the kitchen,
etc.) is an English idiom for a question or problem that very
obviously stands, but which is ignored for the convenience of one or
other party. It derives its symbolic meaning from the fact that an
elephant would indeed be conspicuous and remarkable in a small room;
thus the idiom also implies a value judgment that the issue should be
discussed openly. "
* * *
Foreword:
Mike Rivers created a trolling thread in which he facetiously praised
me for being a conduit for posting valuable information (which he
claimed occurs when heros like him respond to my 'trolling' posts).
That particular round of harassment inspired me to compile the
valuable information contained in this FAQ and post it regularly on a
weekly basis to rec.audio.pro until it is no longer necessary, though
I suspect that it may always be necessary.
I also figured that posting the list of cronymob members would be a
good way to get people who haven't been added to the list of
cronymobsters yet to beg to be added... so beg away, cronymobsters,
suck ups, wannabes, and cowardly snipers from the sidelines! You're
all invited!
The main purpose of this FAQ is so that I can have something to post
routinely against the cronymob, without having to spend as much time
as I have fielding individual attacks. This FAQ simply serves as a
primer for future victims who otherwise would not have any idea why
they are being harassed, because they would not be aware of the long
history of abusiveness on rec.audio.pro. Unlike the cronymobsters who
all seem to be so unemployed that they can spend all day every day
pounding out obnoxious replies to usenet, I just don't have time to
stick around and educate new victims when they arrvive and begin
getting harassed. This FAQ sums up the entire situation, and I only
have to waste time writing it once. So, if you have recently come to
rec.audio.pro for some reason, and you are wondering why you're
suddenly being harassed and abused, this FAQ should serve to fill you
in and help assure you that you're NOT the crazy one, you're NOT the
instigator, this really IS a mob effort. And although this mob effort
has never been organized in any official capacity, it has evolved to
be as sophisticated as any organized, concerted effort would be.
By the way, it may be worth noting, that a lot of the 'professionals'
who frequent rec.audio.pro are people who install and maintain sound
systems in their local churches. This is what makes them
'professional', according to them. The fact that I consider myself to
be a 'hardcore atheist' may have something to do with my not being on
the same wavelength as the bulk of the rec.audio.pro posters.
Although religion has never been a component in the cronymob abuse, or
my defense, the fact that so many church-going christians are involved
in the cronymob as members or suck-ups may go a long way in explaining
why they so easily coalesce into a group, cult-like dynamic.
* * *
Introduction:
Over the years, certain online social forums such as usenet
groups have degenerated into hangouts for people who do little if
anything in real life, instead choosing to live their lives online,
probably as a result of social dysfunction, or undesirable appearance,
or odor. The rec.audio.pro group has an unusually large number of
these people. They can be quite knowledgable, afterall they've been
passing information back and forth for years, and in only a few,
albeit major cases that has resulted in communal reinforcement of
false information. So generally they can be a somewhat useful
resource. Unfortunately, what often happens is that a person who
lives his life in the real world rather than the internet, needs a
question answered about audio production, technology, or
what-have-you. Now that home computers are powerful enough for
professional audio applications, many people with no previous
experience in this area are getting into it and asking questions on
forums like rec.audio.pro. These people often end up getting severely
harassed in the process of trying to have their questions answered.
Needless to say, when these individuals find a dozen people suddenly
jumping down their necks, so to speak, they do not stick around for
very long. Sometimes, however, the cronymob makes the mistake of
levelling their abuse at someone who does have considerable experience
in the field, so is not so easily intimidated and so quickly chased
away. The author of this FAQ (me) is one of those people. The author
of this FAQ (me) has coined the term 'cronymob' to refer to the
unorganized group of abusers, some of which may not even be aware of
what they're doing, since the cronymob is formed by unspoken social
cues, and members rarely talk as if they are a part of a group
(though, in the process of abusing a victim, they invariably accuse of
the victim of being undesirable to the rest of the newsgroup, and may
often refer to themselves as 'us'). So the cronymob's collective
memory is filled with various names of individuals who popped onto
rec.audio.pro, were immediately harassed by the mob, and took off in a
hurry when they realized they were up against a social group who has
made a habit of this behavior. In fact, the members of the cronymob
are so paranoid about people with names they don't recognize posting,
that they often think new posters are people they've previously run
out of the group with abuse, coming back under a different name to
mess with them. This results in a positive-feedback loop in which
their abuse and harassment of individuals gets amplified by their
paranoia. Having been one of their targets, I personally have been
accused of being a half a dozen different people they've abused in the
past.
Usually they chase off the people they harass so quickly that
two individuals are rarely being harassed at the same time, so usually
the victim is forced to consider the cronymob's inevitable claims that
the victim has a 'persecution complex', as over a dozen people jump on
him. Recently, however, the author of this FAQ (Chevdo), found
himself being harassed by the cronymob at the same time they were busy
harassing another individual, PhobikONE. Because of this, Chevdo and
Phobik were able to at least take consolation in the fact that each
knew he was right, and that the cronymob really does exist, in an
unofficial but habitual, patterned manner. The leader of the
cronymob, Scott Dorsey, widely considred to be the most knowledgable
audio-expert on rec.audio.pro, even had the audacity to claim that
Chevdo and Phobik were the same person posting from the same IP, even
though Phobik and Chevdo aren't even in the same country, and use
different newsreaders, meaning that not only were their IPs different,
nothing in their headers was even remotely similar! But did anyone
besides the victims take Dorsey to task for that? Of course not,
instead, they simply called the victims 'whiners', with 'persecution
complexes'.
Now, because the victims of the cronymob actually have lives,
and don't enjoy being perpetual victims for a large group of
dispicable humans, the victims usually don't stick around on the group
long enough to warn new victims and inform them of this long-standing
pattern of mob abuse on rec.audio.pro. And that is the purpose of
this FAQ. If you find yourself being attacked by an alarming number
of individuals on rec.audio.pro for no good reason, now you know why.
And now you know that you're not alone. Indeed, there have been many
victims of the rec.audio.pro cronymob, but so far I only know of the
heresay provided when I've been accused of being various different
names of past victims. I won't list those names here until I research
their history with rec.audio.pro accurately. But, if you feel that
you've been a victim, reply to the posting of this FAQ. The author
(me) will periodically monitor followups to the FAQ posting. If you
have been victimized, and you would like it to be known that you are
in fact innocent, I will add you to the list of victims in this FAQ
upon personally investigating your case and evaluating its
authenticity.
Historical notes:
Due to the fact that the cronymob needs a constant supply of people to
victimize, they use certain contentious issues to draw people out as
targets. These are issues they obsess over and communally reinforce
amongst each other. The first experience I had with the cronymob
targeting me was when I stuck up for the audio-equipment manufacturer
Behringer. The cronymob believes that Behringer makes terrible gear,
mainly because Behringer has been accused of copying designs of other
companys' equipment and manufacturing the copies using cheap
third-world labor in order to retail the copies much cheaper than the
originals retail for. The cronymob, however, is not concerned with
the social implications of hiring third-world wage-slaves, most of
them simply cite the 'intellectual property rights' propaganda issued
by Mackie, Behringer's main nemesis, as the reason for their obsessive
Behringer-bashing.
Another issue the cronymob is firmly devoted to and uses to find
victims is the 'loudness wars'. The 'loudness wars' refers to the
tendency for the most popular commercially-available CDs to be
mastered with more and more compression over the years as artists and
record companies compete to have the loudest product on the market.
Even though this practice has clearly proved itself in the
marketplace, the cronymob is totally against it. This is one of the
main reasons the cronymob is so angry and full of emotional angst -
their devotion to anti-loudness has caused them to deliberately put
themselves out of business via commercial suicide.
Finally, the cronymob hates Wikipedia, because Wikipedia has developed
to be the most reliable source on the web for information about
anything under the sun, including things the cronymob insists they are
experts in. Since Wikipedia represents an authority that can refute
whatever members of the cronymob communally reinforce amongst
themselves as gospel, Wikipedia also represents a threat to the
cronymob's authority over the rec.audio.pro newsgroup. Rather than
devoting their alleged vast knowledge to helping make Wikipedia
better, they prefer to insist that Wikipedia is worthless, and that
the cronymob, particularly crony-leader, Scott Dorsey, is the ultimate
authority pertaining to anything to do with audio. ("I had no idea
that wikipedia had any credibility to question. --scott")
Questions & Answers
Q: What is the purpose of this FAQ?
A: The purpose is to document actual behavior that is occuring, but
which a large group of people (the cronymob) claim to be unaware is
occuring and that they are perpetrating.* By explaining the situation
and collecting the names of the abused, the author of the FAQ (me)
hopes that by illuminating this sordid situation, people within the
cronymob may make a concerted effort to change their behavior, and
others may make a concerted effort to hold the members of the cronymob
to a higher standard of social discourse. In otherwords, the hope is
that this FAQ will ultimately result in the dissolution of the
cronymob entirely.
Q: How come you seem to know so much about this, and can write about
it so articulately and authoritatively? Were you a member of this
'cronymob' who has defected? If not how come you didn't get chased
off quickly like most of the victims?
A: No, I've never been a member of this cronymob, however, I think
everyone has probably been a part of a similar social group at some
time in their lives, and I'm no exception. In highschool and prior,
such behavior was common if not ubiquitous. The reason I know a lot
about group dynamics is because I have studied cults, delusion,
critical thinking, and related fields of psychology due to having
known two people in my (real, not online) life who have joined cults.
I was perplexed about this (since neither of those two people knew
each other - these were completely seperate incidents), and I was also
effected by the swath of damage they left behind to the people who had
been close to them before they joined the cults. So I made a
concerted effort to learn all I could about what motivates people to
subordinate themselves to group dynamics.
Much of what I learned about how cults are formed and how they
operate is analogous to the way the rec.audio.pro cronymob developed
and operates (though the victims in cults are the members, they do not
actively seek out individuals to be hostile towards, so that those
hostile towards cults tend to be limited to people with whom members
formerly had relationships with and cult members' biological
families).
That knowledge probably helped me resist the social cues issued by the
cronymob to urge me to subordinate myself. Also as I mentioned
earlier, my longtime experience with audio production, particularly
with computer DAWs (Digital Audio Workstations) made me less easy to
intimidate with one of the usual cronymob tactics, that of insisting
the target (victim) is always wrong.
Q: This all seems so obsessive, don't you have anything better to do
with your time? Are you sure you're mentally stable?
A: Yes I definitely have better things to do with my time, which is
why I've compiled this FAQ rather than posting all day long every day
in the flamewars the cronymob generates on rec.audio.pro, and
apparently really wants me to participate in. They seem to have all
the free time in the world to engage in flame wars, but I do not. I
have no idea if I am 'mentally stable', it's not much of a concern to
me and hasn't been since I made a concerted effort a few years ago,
also spurred by the social incident in my life of two people I know
joining cults, to investigate philosophy and psychology and reconcile
my 'place in the world' as best as I could. The results I achieved
from doing that far surpassed the results I anticipated when I began
that investigation. The only thing that could possibly be an issue
for me would be problems with vanity and conceit due to recognition of
my own superiority. But since I know that is the one thing I need to
watch out for most, I do. And I know enough about myself and the
human condition to be able to do a fine job of keeping that in check.
Q: Yeah, but so many people seem to think you're 'the problem'. It
seems odd that so many people would be wrong, and you'd be right,
doesn't it?
A: On the surface it might, until you investigate group dynamics. The
entire population of Germany put their support behind a similar group
only 60 years ago. In fact, in relation to the previous question, its
because of my far above-average ability to resist social pressure that
I am able to take on the cronymob, rather than submitting to them or
running away, as all their previous victims have.
Q: But Nazi Germany required a massive effort and organization to
achieve, whereas you claim this 'cronymob' has developed its
sophisticated behaviors with many of the so-called members not even
being aware they're participating!
A: That's because the cronymob has developed according to an
evolutionary model, but don't get me wrong, this is a peculiar
anomaly. I've participated in many webforums, usenet groups, mailing
lists and the like (online social forums), and this one has by far the
most highly-evolved group of self-appointed elitists. That's one of
the reasons I'm writing this FAQ. I've never bothered writing
something like this after being kicked off of or trolled out of a
online forum before, and I've been kicked off of or deserted many
online forums. This one just seems to represent the worst traits of
all of them, and exhibits them most energetically, with a lot of
people participating. Perhaps in the future sociologists
investigating the genesis of social norms of the future will look back
to the beginnings of online-communications and stumble across this
FAQ, alerting them to the fact that rec.audio.pro is a ripe field for
the data they're looking to harvest.
Q: Ok, if you're so well-adjusted and mentally stable, why write this
voluminous FAQ? Shouldn't you be 'above' all this, or at least have
something better to do?
A: Well I'm sure I do have plenty of things better to do than writing
this FAQ, but this FAQ is written to save me from wasting more time
responding to attacks. Not that there's anything forcing me to
respond to attacks, but the fact is I'm still human like everyone
else. I don't exactly enjoy being picked on, and find the entire
display rather sickening. We pick and choose our battles in this
life. I can't change anything happening in the Middle East, for
example, but I can do my best to influence what I can in this world
according to how I'd prefer the world to be. I'd prefer it if most of
the humans I come in contact with were as prepared to take a
thoughtful approach to their behavior as I am, rather than the usual
self-absorbed jackasses I tend to come in contact with far too
frequently.
* -- Note: although the cronymobsters originally vehemently denied
existence of the cronymob, after the second posting of this FAQ they
took to a predictable strategy of mocking the FAQ by pretending to
celebrate the reality depicted in it, gleefully chattering about
having Cronymob t-shirts made up for themselves).
* * *
List of victims:
Chevdo
PhobikONE
NOTE: PhobikONE, after recieving reams of abuse, finally caved and
submitted to the cronymob, and actually began sucking up to Romeo
Rondaeu, after Rondaeu thoroughly trolled him and harassed him.
Pretty sad, but not at all unexpected. I will remove him from this
section of the FAQ if he requests that I do so.
Phil - I don't know who Phil is, but he's the latest person I noticed
cronymob members comparing to me, apparently a past victim they
abused.
Mr. Sharp - another apparent previous victim whose identity
'audioaesthetic' is currently claiming I possess.
Gary Sokolich - Gary is a minor victim, mostly of cronymobster Bob
Cain's personal trolling. Often the cronymob won't join in harassing
a victim unless the leaders of the mob such as Dorsey or Rivers do so
first. Since neither Dorsey nor Rivers ever took Bob's cue to harass
Gary, Bob has been all alone in his fight against Gary. This should
serve as a warning to some of you who might want to join the cronymob
for lifelong protection and support (online, anyway). The cronymob
are fairweather friends, and simply won't support your abusive whims
unless you can get Dorsey or Rivers to give your crusade the royal
thumbs up.
* * *
People who have actually had the guts to criticize the cronymob for
their harassment and abuse:
Patric Doyle - inspired the creation of a new list section of this
FAQ, that being people who are neither cronymobsters nor victims, but
in fact rec.audio.pro users who had the guts to speak out against the
cronymob and admit, to some degree, that they are instigators.
Patric realized that Mike Rivers' generation of his 'Chevdo Troll'
thread, was in fact a blatant act of trolling. Unfortunately, Patric
wasn't prepared to acknowledge the victimization of Chevdo, instead
claiming that I did my 'Chevdo act', whatever that is (being honest
and not submitting to abuse and harassment?). By referring to my
discourse as a 'Chevdo act', Patric unfortunately stuck to the
despicable cronymob act of pretending Chevdo (me) somehow deserved
even an iota of the harassment and abuse received by the cronymob.
Hopefully, future heros I add to this list, likely inspired by
Patric's remarkably brave, though only half-candid admission, won't,
like Patric, only be able to chastize the members of the cronymob for
'losing control', and, unlike Patric, have the guts to admit that I
don't deserve any of the abuse I've received from the cronymob.
- This person said, in response to a posting of this
FAQ, that he agrees there is a clique on rec.audio.pro. He said he
values my opinions and considers me to be a "savy guy", but recommends
that I "relax about it a little bit", apparently meaning that he
advises me to not continue posting this FAQ. I don't know if his
compliments were sincere, or if he was just hoping to play 'good cop'
to talk me into not continuing to post this FAQ. I asked him, but he
didn't respond. His post was the impetus for inclusion of the
'elephant in the room' parable at the beginning of this FAQ.
* * *
The following people are the most dispicable representations of
homo-sapiens this side of Hitler, PolPot, Stalin, and their
supporters. Their power on rec.audio.pro is absolute, though
thankfully non-existent in real life. They have no qualms about
blatantly lying to stroke their own and each other's egos, and lies
and slander are the chief ways in which they abuse people. These are
people for whom schadenfreude is a way of life, albeit, a pathetic,
online-only, power-coward fantasy way of life.
List of Cronymobsters and Associates:
Scott Dorsey - blatantly lied in claiming that me and another person
who was concurrently being abused on RAP (PhobikOne) post with the
same IP in our message headers. Unofficial leader of the cronymob.
Very knowledgeable with audio stuff, but often wrong and never
contested.
Mike Rivers - Recently (July, 2006) didn't even know that cd-r/rw
drives dont have Windows drivers (drivers for each model are coded
into cd burning software, which is why newer drives won't work with
older versions of cd-burning software), but is considered to be one of
the group's most knowledgable experts. Second in command cronymobster
after Dorsey. Because I've made a point of mocking Rivers' tremendous
ignorance regarding cd-rom drives, he's been doing his best to try to
make me look just as stupid by taking my statements out of context
(for example, I recently said I didn't know what a poster meant by a
'wav file' because he was asking about compressed wav files (wav files
are not compressed, when you compress a wav-file, it becomes a
different type of file, not a wav file). Rivers seized on this to
announce that .wav is a standard that has been around for a long time,
devised by Microsoft! (as if I didn't already know this). Another
cronymob-suckup followed up Rivers' post with more support for his
claim that I didn't know what a 'wav file' was. I suspect Rivers will
not only keep trying to make me look as ignorant as he is, but will
also keep expressing his ignorance (he routinely expresses his opinion
on matters he has no experience with). So I will continue to document
both Rivers' ignorance and his futile attempts to make me out to be as
stupid as he is, if not dumber.
audioaesthetic - #1 most sucky crony suck up. This guy is one of the
most obnoxious of the mob, there's not much to say about him other
than like Romeo Rondeau, he never misses a chance to abuse, harass, or
troll the victim. His type represents the lowest, grunt soldiers of
the mob. The higher ups don't get involved in every single melee,
leaving the bulk of the dirty work to the most sadistic underlings.
Arny Kreuger - rarely lucid enough to be much more than a half-assed
crony suck up, but acts like and probably thinks he's a full-fledged
mobster with considerable clout. Like Dorsey, though not as much,
he's very knowledgable in audio stuff, though cronymobsters are
allowed to disagree with him, unlike the unwritten rule against
disagreeing with Dorsey. Likes to use techno-gibberish in arguments,
and likes to participate in the 'target (victim) is always wrong'
tactic, sometimes using his propensity to generate techno-gibberish to
that effect.
Romeo Rondaeu - Loser, second suckiest crony suck up
David Morgan - Loser, crony suck up
Bob Cain - Loser, crony suck up. Like Arny, Bob likes to use
techno-gibberish in arguments and revels in engaging in the 'target
(victim) is always wrong' tactic.
Laurence Payne - Loser, crony suck up
Daniel Fox - Loser, crony suck up
Ty Ford - cronymobster (second most wannabe crony enforcer)
Agent 86 - cronymobster
Dr. Dolittle - formerly borderline, but since confirmed full cronymob
devotion. Of the simpering, passive-aggressive sort.
Geezer - total crony loser (#1 wannabe crony enforcer)
Lorin David Schultz - Long time cronymobster, one of the first to join
abuse of me personally, but happened to be absent for most of the
latest round of abuse. Would probably be #2 wannabe crony enforcer
if he had been more active. Seems to be making up for lost time by
levelling voluminous abuse very recently.
vas - possible cronymobster, sideline sniper (July, 2006)
Rick Hollet - troll, possible cronymobster, sideline sniper
Mfassett - troll, possible cronymobster, sideline sniper
Steven Sena - said Mike Rivers 'Chevdo trolling thread' was a 'hoot',
probable cronymob suck up
Ron Capik - responded to Mike Rivers Chevdo trolling thread asking if
a previous person the cronymob had abused should be 'invited back' for
more abuse... definite cronymobster
Frank Sterns - part of the cronymob, but one of the few
passive-aggressive mobsters. Frank doesn't feel comfortable joining
the mob in blatant group attacks, rather, Frank helps the mob by
responding to any of the mob's target's posts to tell that person that
whatever he has written is wrong, no matter how irrelevent, weakly
connected, or simply erroneous Frank's objection turns out to be.
William Sommerwerck - probable passive-aggressive mobster
Rick Hollet - borderline, being monitored
Paul Braun - cronymob suck up, sideline sniper
Todd Lipcon - troll, sideline sniper and probable suck up (Todd
responded to the first posting of this FAQ to inform me that twonks
like him who run Linux need drivers for their CD roms, in response to
the Mike Rivers entry, as if his Linux cd-rom driver revelation was
somehow relevent to Rivers, who doesn't run Linux. And since he told
me that his irrelevent babble meant that I was 'wrong', he's probably
a deliberate crony suck up) . The Mike Rivers entry has since been
updated to specify 'Windows', to prevent any future retards like Todd
from joining the list the same way Todd did.
Animix - ridiculous newbie crony suck up (this guy actually had the
nerve to blatantly request being added as a suck up after reading the
first posting of this FAQ. He says he couldn't think of any insults
to send my way but he so desperately wants to be part of this list of
losers, I'm all too happy to oblige). I was hoping some of the more
desperate obscure crony wannabes would jump at the chance to get on
the list, and this guy seems to be the first, but probably not the
last...
Richard Crowley - Forgot to add this total cronymobster and suck up in
the original version of the FAQ because he is such a dullard that he
is easily forgettable. But he really does try hard to be as vicious
as possible to targets (victims) to try to get attention. Luckily
Richard chimed in after the first posting of the FAQ to remind me of
his sorry existence.
St. John Smythe - obscure nobody who stated 'Yawn' at an addendum to
the first posting of this FAQ. Probably thinks he's too cool for
school and is looking to get into the mob. Unfortunately the mob is
so vast the members have to vye for attention among themselves and new
wannabes have a lot of trouble getting noticed. Some of the more
sophisticated ones probably don't like to leap into the vicious mob
browbeatings, though, and Smythe might be one of those. Or maybe he's
an online magician who just caused me to write an entire paragraph by
uttering a single cryptive emotive.
Michael R. Kesti - cronymob suck up, yet another obscure nobody trying
to garner his first few cronypoints by taking a shot at Chevdo.
Responding to Chevdo's tongue-in-cheek suggestion that if he were
nailed up to a crucifix, cronymobsters would still accuse him of
having a 'persecution complex', Michael thought that a hilarious
rejoinder would be to request 'experimental data to test this
hypothesis', in otherwords, Michael would like to crucify me. Pretty
hillarious stuff, Michael. What's the 'R' stand for? Retard? Runt?
Rodent? Take your pick, I suppose.
John Blankenship - This twit jumped in after I asked about prices for
a piece of gear somebody from the company that makes it blatantly
spammed the group about, with a link to the company's website that did
not have prices of the gear he was hawking. Anyway, John decided to
tell me that he had no problem finding the prices on the website.
Whether he was lying or not is anyone's guess because he didn't reveal
the price to me when he told me how easily he found it. I think John
was probably making a very limp attempt at scoring some cronypoints
but he could just be a run of the mill troll operating independently.
Willie K Yee, MD - This idiotic troll decided to post a new thread on
July 16th, 2006 asking if 'Chevdo is still around' and if 'Phil is
still around' and if 'Chevdo is the new Phil'. Phil, apparently is
someone of the many previous victims of the mob, one of the many
victims they've accused me of being. Yee is one of the lowest forms
of cronymob suckup, on par with audioaesthetic for generating new
threads for no purpose other than harassment.
jwvm - Capitolized on Yee's post to respond and announce that previous
victim 'Phil' is 'smarter than Chevdo'. This nobody is obviously
looking to score some cronypoints.
soeirntnpsro - obscure independent troll who apparently wants to
manipulate the cronymob into helping him attack his personal nemesis
'simkatu', by telling the cronymob that Chevdo = simkatu.
Soeirntnpsro suddenly appeared after the second posting of the FAQ,
starting a new 'Chevdo thread', this time accusing me of being someone
called 'simkatu'. I don't get the impression there was ever a
concerted cronymob effort against 'simkatu', though, and they probably
won't be enthused to join him in attacking 'simkatu' unless he starts
sucking up to them rather than simply trying to manipulate them to do
his bidding.
Dale - responded to soeirntnpsro's post with a paste of 'cheesedogs'
first post. Cheesedog is the name that 'audioaesthetic' calls me,
which is supposed to be insulting, I guess. It's a given that anyone
using the name 'cheesedog' is a sock-puppet of audioaesthetic's
(sock-puppets are additional posting identities used by a single
person, often used to agree with and support his own postings under
his standard name or pseudonym).
oldphart: probably another audioaesthetic sock-puppet, or a 'geezer'
sock-puppet. His devastating insult was to claim that this FAQ is
poorly written, full of spelling and grammar errors, and obviously the
work of someone of high-school age. Ouch! Truth is, I never use
'spell-check' software (or more properly, 'spelling checking
software'), mainly due to its propensity to allow properly spelled but
improperly chosen words through, and because I am a very good speller,
though I usually do look up any word I want to use that I think I
might be spelling wrong. I've always made an effort to write as
clearly and directly as possible, and using proper grammar tends to
help with that. I'm sure you'll find this FAQ riddled with comma
splices, for example, but that would be the extent of the bad grammar.
I think that the fact that he felt the need to insult my writing is a
result of his recognizing how well-written this FAQ is, and what a
formidable mind is behind it.
William Sommerwick - long time crony, apparently the main abuser of
the victim known as 'Phil'. The Phil vs. William saga doesn't seem to
inspire the entire cronymob as much as the Cronymob vs. Chevdo saga,
though. Some of the cronymob's victims are victimized on a limited
basis, without all of the members of the mob participating. In fact
it may be useful to differentiate between victims like Phil, and
'super-victims' like Chevdo. Super-victims not only cause the entire
mob to participate in the attack, they are also the chief conduit
whereby new recruits announce their intentions to be part of the
cronymob by using the super-victim as their first target; an
initiation of sorts. They probably feel safe doing so, knowing that
they will get a universal thumbs up, whereas if they were to join a
limited attack on a victim, they might be concerned that they could be
jumping into what is simply a heated argument, rather than a mob
attack.
0junk4me - Just a run-of-the-mill newbie crony-suckup, looking to move
up in the heirarchy by joining the attack. His vector into the mob
was the thread William Yee created for the specific purpose of abusing
Chevdo.
Harvey Gerst - "Hey, you dumb, ****head ****wad, what more do I hafta
do to get on your
goddamn list? Mike Rivers is currently about 50 feet away as I type
this. He came up to visit after we both went to the NAMM show in
Austin. If that doesn't qualify me for the Cronymob, what does?". -
Harvey Gerst. See the * note at the end of the this section for
explaination of Harvey's statement.
Richard Smol - another obscure moron who begged to be on this list.
Now, if people begging to get on this list isn't prima facie evidence
of the existence of the cronymob, I don't know what else could
possibly provide that verification. The fact that cronymob leaders
vehemently deny existence of the cronymob while cronymob wannabes and
suckups beg to get on this list, is laughably ironic.
Jim Gilliland - "And even Harvey didn't make the list. Yet there are
a few names on
there that I don't even recognize. I think it's the work of an
amateur.". Jim's statement appears to be part of the growing trend of
the cronymobsters reacting to the posting of this FAQ by admitting
that the cronymob does in fact exist, and even going so far as to
openly celebrate its canonization by this FAQ. But apparently, a
'professional victim' would've done a better job of documenting the
cronymob, according to Jim (which is a terrible sitcom, BTW, but not
as bad as Reba).
Julian - Yet another dim-witted crony wannabe who is otherwise nobody.
* (note: there have been others that should have been added to the FAQ
since the last posting, but I simply didn't have time to add them when
they posted their drivel, but that's ok because they are so desperate
for cronypoints, as soon as they discover they didn't make it to the
FAQ this week, they'll ramp up their efforts and make sure I don't
miss them next time around.)
rec.audio.pro 'Elephant in the Room' Cronymob FAQ Version 3.5
last update: July 21th, 2006
written by Chevdo, supreme survivor of cronymob abuse
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elephant_in_the_room
"The elephant in the room (also elephant in the living room, elephant
in the corner, elephant on the dinner table, elephant in the kitchen,
etc.) is an English idiom for a question or problem that very
obviously stands, but which is ignored for the convenience of one or
other party. It derives its symbolic meaning from the fact that an
elephant would indeed be conspicuous and remarkable in a small room;
thus the idiom also implies a value judgment that the issue should be
discussed openly. "
* * *
Foreword:
Mike Rivers created a trolling thread in which he facetiously praised
me for being a conduit for posting valuable information (which he
claimed occurs when heros like him respond to my 'trolling' posts).
That particular round of harassment inspired me to compile the
valuable information contained in this FAQ and post it regularly on a
weekly basis to rec.audio.pro until it is no longer necessary, though
I suspect that it may always be necessary.
I also figured that posting the list of cronymob members would be a
good way to get people who haven't been added to the list of
cronymobsters yet to beg to be added... so beg away, cronymobsters,
suck ups, wannabes, and cowardly snipers from the sidelines! You're
all invited!
The main purpose of this FAQ is so that I can have something to post
routinely against the cronymob, without having to spend as much time
as I have fielding individual attacks. This FAQ simply serves as a
primer for future victims who otherwise would not have any idea why
they are being harassed, because they would not be aware of the long
history of abusiveness on rec.audio.pro. Unlike the cronymobsters who
all seem to be so unemployed that they can spend all day every day
pounding out obnoxious replies to usenet, I just don't have time to
stick around and educate new victims when they arrvive and begin
getting harassed. This FAQ sums up the entire situation, and I only
have to waste time writing it once. So, if you have recently come to
rec.audio.pro for some reason, and you are wondering why you're
suddenly being harassed and abused, this FAQ should serve to fill you
in and help assure you that you're NOT the crazy one, you're NOT the
instigator, this really IS a mob effort. And although this mob effort
has never been organized in any official capacity, it has evolved to
be as sophisticated as any organized, concerted effort would be.
By the way, it may be worth noting, that a lot of the 'professionals'
who frequent rec.audio.pro are people who install and maintain sound
systems in their local churches. This is what makes them
'professional', according to them. The fact that I consider myself to
be a 'hardcore atheist' may have something to do with my not being on
the same wavelength as the bulk of the rec.audio.pro posters.
Although religion has never been a component in the cronymob abuse, or
my defense, the fact that so many church-going christians are involved
in the cronymob as members or suck-ups may go a long way in explaining
why they so easily coalesce into a group, cult-like dynamic.
* * *
Introduction:
Over the years, certain online social forums such as usenet
groups have degenerated into hangouts for people who do little if
anything in real life, instead choosing to live their lives online,
probably as a result of social dysfunction, or undesirable appearance,
or odor. The rec.audio.pro group has an unusually large number of
these people. They can be quite knowledgable, afterall they've been
passing information back and forth for years, and in only a few,
albeit major cases that has resulted in communal reinforcement of
false information. So generally they can be a somewhat useful
resource. Unfortunately, what often happens is that a person who
lives his life in the real world rather than the internet, needs a
question answered about audio production, technology, or
what-have-you. Now that home computers are powerful enough for
professional audio applications, many people with no previous
experience in this area are getting into it and asking questions on
forums like rec.audio.pro. These people often end up getting severely
harassed in the process of trying to have their questions answered.
Needless to say, when these individuals find a dozen people suddenly
jumping down their necks, so to speak, they do not stick around for
very long. Sometimes, however, the cronymob makes the mistake of
levelling their abuse at someone who does have considerable experience
in the field, so is not so easily intimidated and so quickly chased
away. The author of this FAQ (me) is one of those people. The author
of this FAQ (me) has coined the term 'cronymob' to refer to the
unorganized group of abusers, some of which may not even be aware of
what they're doing, since the cronymob is formed by unspoken social
cues, and members rarely talk as if they are a part of a group
(though, in the process of abusing a victim, they invariably accuse of
the victim of being undesirable to the rest of the newsgroup, and may
often refer to themselves as 'us'). So the cronymob's collective
memory is filled with various names of individuals who popped onto
rec.audio.pro, were immediately harassed by the mob, and took off in a
hurry when they realized they were up against a social group who has
made a habit of this behavior. In fact, the members of the cronymob
are so paranoid about people with names they don't recognize posting,
that they often think new posters are people they've previously run
out of the group with abuse, coming back under a different name to
mess with them. This results in a positive-feedback loop in which
their abuse and harassment of individuals gets amplified by their
paranoia. Having been one of their targets, I personally have been
accused of being a half a dozen different people they've abused in the
past.
Usually they chase off the people they harass so quickly that
two individuals are rarely being harassed at the same time, so usually
the victim is forced to consider the cronymob's inevitable claims that
the victim has a 'persecution complex', as over a dozen people jump on
him. Recently, however, the author of this FAQ (Chevdo), found
himself being harassed by the cronymob at the same time they were busy
harassing another individual, PhobikONE. Because of this, Chevdo and
Phobik were able to at least take consolation in the fact that each
knew he was right, and that the cronymob really does exist, in an
unofficial but habitual, patterned manner. The leader of the
cronymob, Scott Dorsey, widely considred to be the most knowledgable
audio-expert on rec.audio.pro, even had the audacity to claim that
Chevdo and Phobik were the same person posting from the same IP, even
though Phobik and Chevdo aren't even in the same country, and use
different newsreaders, meaning that not only were their IPs different,
nothing in their headers was even remotely similar! But did anyone
besides the victims take Dorsey to task for that? Of course not,
instead, they simply called the victims 'whiners', with 'persecution
complexes'.
Now, because the victims of the cronymob actually have lives,
and don't enjoy being perpetual victims for a large group of
dispicable humans, the victims usually don't stick around on the group
long enough to warn new victims and inform them of this long-standing
pattern of mob abuse on rec.audio.pro. And that is the purpose of
this FAQ. If you find yourself being attacked by an alarming number
of individuals on rec.audio.pro for no good reason, now you know why.
And now you know that you're not alone. Indeed, there have been many
victims of the rec.audio.pro cronymob, but so far I only know of the
heresay provided when I've been accused of being various different
names of past victims. I won't list those names here until I research
their history with rec.audio.pro accurately. But, if you feel that
you've been a victim, reply to the posting of this FAQ. The author
(me) will periodically monitor followups to the FAQ posting. If you
have been victimized, and you would like it to be known that you are
in fact innocent, I will add you to the list of victims in this FAQ
upon personally investigating your case and evaluating its
authenticity.
Historical notes:
Due to the fact that the cronymob needs a constant supply of people to
victimize, they use certain contentious issues to draw people out as
targets. These are issues they obsess over and communally reinforce
amongst each other. The first experience I had with the cronymob
targeting me was when I stuck up for the audio-equipment manufacturer
Behringer. The cronymob believes that Behringer makes terrible gear,
mainly because Behringer has been accused of copying designs of other
companys' equipment and manufacturing the copies using cheap
third-world labor in order to retail the copies much cheaper than the
originals retail for. The cronymob, however, is not concerned with
the social implications of hiring third-world wage-slaves, most of
them simply cite the 'intellectual property rights' propaganda issued
by Mackie, Behringer's main nemesis, as the reason for their obsessive
Behringer-bashing.
Another issue the cronymob is firmly devoted to and uses to find
victims is the 'loudness wars'. The 'loudness wars' refers to the
tendency for the most popular commercially-available CDs to be
mastered with more and more compression over the years as artists and
record companies compete to have the loudest product on the market.
Even though this practice has clearly proved itself in the
marketplace, the cronymob is totally against it. This is one of the
main reasons the cronymob is so angry and full of emotional angst -
their devotion to anti-loudness has caused them to deliberately put
themselves out of business via commercial suicide.
Finally, the cronymob hates Wikipedia, because Wikipedia has developed
to be the most reliable source on the web for information about
anything under the sun, including things the cronymob insists they are
experts in. Since Wikipedia represents an authority that can refute
whatever members of the cronymob communally reinforce amongst
themselves as gospel, Wikipedia also represents a threat to the
cronymob's authority over the rec.audio.pro newsgroup. Rather than
devoting their alleged vast knowledge to helping make Wikipedia
better, they prefer to insist that Wikipedia is worthless, and that
the cronymob, particularly crony-leader, Scott Dorsey, is the ultimate
authority pertaining to anything to do with audio. ("I had no idea
that wikipedia had any credibility to question. --scott")
Questions & Answers
Q: What is the purpose of this FAQ?
A: The purpose is to document actual behavior that is occuring, but
which a large group of people (the cronymob) claim to be unaware is
occuring and that they are perpetrating.* By explaining the situation
and collecting the names of the abused, the author of the FAQ (me)
hopes that by illuminating this sordid situation, people within the
cronymob may make a concerted effort to change their behavior, and
others may make a concerted effort to hold the members of the cronymob
to a higher standard of social discourse. In otherwords, the hope is
that this FAQ will ultimately result in the dissolution of the
cronymob entirely.
Q: How come you seem to know so much about this, and can write about
it so articulately and authoritatively? Were you a member of this
'cronymob' who has defected? If not how come you didn't get chased
off quickly like most of the victims?
A: No, I've never been a member of this cronymob, however, I think
everyone has probably been a part of a similar social group at some
time in their lives, and I'm no exception. In highschool and prior,
such behavior was common if not ubiquitous. The reason I know a lot
about group dynamics is because I have studied cults, delusion,
critical thinking, and related fields of psychology due to having
known two people in my (real, not online) life who have joined cults.
I was perplexed about this (since neither of those two people knew
each other - these were completely seperate incidents), and I was also
effected by the swath of damage they left behind to the people who had
been close to them before they joined the cults. So I made a
concerted effort to learn all I could about what motivates people to
subordinate themselves to group dynamics.
Much of what I learned about how cults are formed and how they
operate is analogous to the way the rec.audio.pro cronymob developed
and operates (though the victims in cults are the members, they do not
actively seek out individuals to be hostile towards, so that those
hostile towards cults tend to be limited to people with whom members
formerly had relationships with and cult members' biological
families).
That knowledge probably helped me resist the social cues issued by the
cronymob to urge me to subordinate myself. Also as I mentioned
earlier, my longtime experience with audio production, particularly
with computer DAWs (Digital Audio Workstations) made me less easy to
intimidate with one of the usual cronymob tactics, that of insisting
the target (victim) is always wrong.
Q: This all seems so obsessive, don't you have anything better to do
with your time? Are you sure you're mentally stable?
A: Yes I definitely have better things to do with my time, which is
why I've compiled this FAQ rather than posting all day long every day
in the flamewars the cronymob generates on rec.audio.pro, and
apparently really wants me to participate in. They seem to have all
the free time in the world to engage in flame wars, but I do not. I
have no idea if I am 'mentally stable', it's not much of a concern to
me and hasn't been since I made a concerted effort a few years ago,
also spurred by the social incident in my life of two people I know
joining cults, to investigate philosophy and psychology and reconcile
my 'place in the world' as best as I could. The results I achieved
from doing that far surpassed the results I anticipated when I began
that investigation. The only thing that could possibly be an issue
for me would be problems with vanity and conceit due to recognition of
my own superiority. But since I know that is the one thing I need to
watch out for most, I do. And I know enough about myself and the
human condition to be able to do a fine job of keeping that in check.
Q: Yeah, but so many people seem to think you're 'the problem'. It
seems odd that so many people would be wrong, and you'd be right,
doesn't it?
A: On the surface it might, until you investigate group dynamics. The
entire population of Germany put their support behind a similar group
only 60 years ago. In fact, in relation to the previous question, its
because of my far above-average ability to resist social pressure that
I am able to take on the cronymob, rather than submitting to them or
running away, as all their previous victims have.
Q: But Nazi Germany required a massive effort and organization to
achieve, whereas you claim this 'cronymob' has developed its
sophisticated behaviors with many of the so-called members not even
being aware they're participating!
A: That's because the cronymob has developed according to an
evolutionary model, but don't get me wrong, this is a peculiar
anomaly. I've participated in many webforums, usenet groups, mailing
lists and the like (online social forums), and this one has by far the
most highly-evolved group of self-appointed elitists. That's one of
the reasons I'm writing this FAQ. I've never bothered writing
something like this after being kicked off of or trolled out of a
online forum before, and I've been kicked off of or deserted many
online forums. This one just seems to represent the worst traits of
all of them, and exhibits them most energetically, with a lot of
people participating. Perhaps in the future sociologists
investigating the genesis of social norms of the future will look back
to the beginnings of online-communications and stumble across this
FAQ, alerting them to the fact that rec.audio.pro is a ripe field for
the data they're looking to harvest.
Q: Ok, if you're so well-adjusted and mentally stable, why write this
voluminous FAQ? Shouldn't you be 'above' all this, or at least have
something better to do?
A: Well I'm sure I do have plenty of things better to do than writing
this FAQ, but this FAQ is written to save me from wasting more time
responding to attacks. Not that there's anything forcing me to
respond to attacks, but the fact is I'm still human like everyone
else. I don't exactly enjoy being picked on, and find the entire
display rather sickening. We pick and choose our battles in this
life. I can't change anything happening in the Middle East, for
example, but I can do my best to influence what I can in this world
according to how I'd prefer the world to be. I'd prefer it if most of
the humans I come in contact with were as prepared to take a
thoughtful approach to their behavior as I am, rather than the usual
self-absorbed jackasses I tend to come in contact with far too
frequently.
* -- Note: although the cronymobsters originally vehemently denied
existence of the cronymob, after the second posting of this FAQ they
took to a predictable strategy of mocking the FAQ by pretending to
celebrate the reality depicted in it, gleefully chattering about
having Cronymob t-shirts made up for themselves).
* * *
List of victims:
Chevdo
PhobikONE
NOTE: PhobikONE, after recieving reams of abuse, finally caved and
submitted to the cronymob, and actually began sucking up to Romeo
Rondaeu, after Rondaeu thoroughly trolled him and harassed him.
Pretty sad, but not at all unexpected. I will remove him from this
section of the FAQ if he requests that I do so.
Phil - I don't know who Phil is, but he's the latest person I noticed
cronymob members comparing to me, apparently a past victim they
abused.
Mr. Sharp - another apparent previous victim whose identity
'audioaesthetic' is currently claiming I possess.
Gary Sokolich - Gary is a minor victim, mostly of cronymobster Bob
Cain's personal trolling. Often the cronymob won't join in harassing
a victim unless the leaders of the mob such as Dorsey or Rivers do so
first. Since neither Dorsey nor Rivers ever took Bob's cue to harass
Gary, Bob has been all alone in his fight against Gary. This should
serve as a warning to some of you who might want to join the cronymob
for lifelong protection and support (online, anyway). The cronymob
are fairweather friends, and simply won't support your abusive whims
unless you can get Dorsey or Rivers to give your crusade the royal
thumbs up.
* * *
People who have actually had the guts to criticize the cronymob for
their harassment and abuse:
Patric Doyle - inspired the creation of a new list section of this
FAQ, that being people who are neither cronymobsters nor victims, but
in fact rec.audio.pro users who had the guts to speak out against the
cronymob and admit, to some degree, that they are instigators.
Patric realized that Mike Rivers' generation of his 'Chevdo Troll'
thread, was in fact a blatant act of trolling. Unfortunately, Patric
wasn't prepared to acknowledge the victimization of Chevdo, instead
claiming that I did my 'Chevdo act', whatever that is (being honest
and not submitting to abuse and harassment?). By referring to my
discourse as a 'Chevdo act', Patric unfortunately stuck to the
despicable cronymob act of pretending Chevdo (me) somehow deserved
even an iota of the harassment and abuse received by the cronymob.
Hopefully, future heros I add to this list, likely inspired by
Patric's remarkably brave, though only half-candid admission, won't,
like Patric, only be able to chastize the members of the cronymob for
'losing control', and, unlike Patric, have the guts to admit that I
don't deserve any of the abuse I've received from the cronymob.
- This person said, in response to a posting of this
FAQ, that he agrees there is a clique on rec.audio.pro. He said he
values my opinions and considers me to be a "savy guy", but recommends
that I "relax about it a little bit", apparently meaning that he
advises me to not continue posting this FAQ. I don't know if his
compliments were sincere, or if he was just hoping to play 'good cop'
to talk me into not continuing to post this FAQ. I asked him, but he
didn't respond. His post was the impetus for inclusion of the
'elephant in the room' parable at the beginning of this FAQ.
* * *
The following people are the most dispicable representations of
homo-sapiens this side of Hitler, PolPot, Stalin, and their
supporters. Their power on rec.audio.pro is absolute, though
thankfully non-existent in real life. They have no qualms about
blatantly lying to stroke their own and each other's egos, and lies
and slander are the chief ways in which they abuse people. These are
people for whom schadenfreude is a way of life, albeit, a pathetic,
online-only, power-coward fantasy way of life.
List of Cronymobsters and Associates:
Scott Dorsey - blatantly lied in claiming that me and another person
who was concurrently being abused on RAP (PhobikOne) post with the
same IP in our message headers. Unofficial leader of the cronymob.
Very knowledgeable with audio stuff, but often wrong and never
contested.
Mike Rivers - Recently (July, 2006) didn't even know that cd-r/rw
drives dont have Windows drivers (drivers for each model are coded
into cd burning software, which is why newer drives won't work with
older versions of cd-burning software), but is considered to be one of
the group's most knowledgable experts. Second in command cronymobster
after Dorsey. Because I've made a point of mocking Rivers' tremendous
ignorance regarding cd-rom drives, he's been doing his best to try to
make me look just as stupid by taking my statements out of context
(for example, I recently said I didn't know what a poster meant by a
'wav file' because he was asking about compressed wav files (wav files
are not compressed, when you compress a wav-file, it becomes a
different type of file, not a wav file). Rivers seized on this to
announce that .wav is a standard that has been around for a long time,
devised by Microsoft! (as if I didn't already know this). Another
cronymob-suckup followed up Rivers' post with more support for his
claim that I didn't know what a 'wav file' was. I suspect Rivers will
not only keep trying to make me look as ignorant as he is, but will
also keep expressing his ignorance (he routinely expresses his opinion
on matters he has no experience with). So I will continue to document
both Rivers' ignorance and his futile attempts to make me out to be as
stupid as he is, if not dumber.
audioaesthetic - #1 most sucky crony suck up. This guy is one of the
most obnoxious of the mob, there's not much to say about him other
than like Romeo Rondeau, he never misses a chance to abuse, harass, or
troll the victim. His type represents the lowest, grunt soldiers of
the mob. The higher ups don't get involved in every single melee,
leaving the bulk of the dirty work to the most sadistic underlings.
Arny Kreuger - rarely lucid enough to be much more than a half-assed
crony suck up, but acts like and probably thinks he's a full-fledged
mobster with considerable clout. Like Dorsey, though not as much,
he's very knowledgable in audio stuff, though cronymobsters are
allowed to disagree with him, unlike the unwritten rule against
disagreeing with Dorsey. Likes to use techno-gibberish in arguments,
and likes to participate in the 'target (victim) is always wrong'
tactic, sometimes using his propensity to generate techno-gibberish to
that effect.
Romeo Rondaeu - Loser, second suckiest crony suck up
David Morgan - Loser, crony suck up
Bob Cain - Loser, crony suck up. Like Arny, Bob likes to use
techno-gibberish in arguments and revels in engaging in the 'target
(victim) is always wrong' tactic.
Laurence Payne - Loser, crony suck up
Daniel Fox - Loser, crony suck up
Ty Ford - cronymobster (second most wannabe crony enforcer)
Agent 86 - cronymobster
Dr. Dolittle - formerly borderline, but since confirmed full cronymob
devotion. Of the simpering, passive-aggressive sort.
Geezer - total crony loser (#1 wannabe crony enforcer)
Lorin David Schultz - Long time cronymobster, one of the first to join
abuse of me personally, but happened to be absent for most of the
latest round of abuse. Would probably be #2 wannabe crony enforcer
if he had been more active. Seems to be making up for lost time by
levelling voluminous abuse very recently.
vas - possible cronymobster, sideline sniper (July, 2006)
Rick Hollet - troll, possible cronymobster, sideline sniper
Mfassett - troll, possible cronymobster, sideline sniper
Steven Sena - said Mike Rivers 'Chevdo trolling thread' was a 'hoot',
probable cronymob suck up
Ron Capik - responded to Mike Rivers Chevdo trolling thread asking if
a previous person the cronymob had abused should be 'invited back' for
more abuse... definite cronymobster
Frank Sterns - part of the cronymob, but one of the few
passive-aggressive mobsters. Frank doesn't feel comfortable joining
the mob in blatant group attacks, rather, Frank helps the mob by
responding to any of the mob's target's posts to tell that person that
whatever he has written is wrong, no matter how irrelevent, weakly
connected, or simply erroneous Frank's objection turns out to be.
William Sommerwerck - probable passive-aggressive mobster
Rick Hollet - borderline, being monitored
Paul Braun - cronymob suck up, sideline sniper
Todd Lipcon - troll, sideline sniper and probable suck up (Todd
responded to the first posting of this FAQ to inform me that twonks
like him who run Linux need drivers for their CD roms, in response to
the Mike Rivers entry, as if his Linux cd-rom driver revelation was
somehow relevent to Rivers, who doesn't run Linux. And since he told
me that his irrelevent babble meant that I was 'wrong', he's probably
a deliberate crony suck up) . The Mike Rivers entry has since been
updated to specify 'Windows', to prevent any future retards like Todd
from joining the list the same way Todd did.
Animix - ridiculous newbie crony suck up (this guy actually had the
nerve to blatantly request being added as a suck up after reading the
first posting of this FAQ. He says he couldn't think of any insults
to send my way but he so desperately wants to be part of this list of
losers, I'm all too happy to oblige). I was hoping some of the more
desperate obscure crony wannabes would jump at the chance to get on
the list, and this guy seems to be the first, but probably not the
last...
Richard Crowley - Forgot to add this total cronymobster and suck up in
the original version of the FAQ because he is such a dullard that he
is easily forgettable. But he really does try hard to be as vicious
as possible to targets (victims) to try to get attention. Luckily
Richard chimed in after the first posting of the FAQ to remind me of
his sorry existence.
St. John Smythe - obscure nobody who stated 'Yawn' at an addendum to
the first posting of this FAQ. Probably thinks he's too cool for
school and is looking to get into the mob. Unfortunately the mob is
so vast the members have to vye for attention among themselves and new
wannabes have a lot of trouble getting noticed. Some of the more
sophisticated ones probably don't like to leap into the vicious mob
browbeatings, though, and Smythe might be one of those. Or maybe he's
an online magician who just caused me to write an entire paragraph by
uttering a single cryptive emotive.
Michael R. Kesti - cronymob suck up, yet another obscure nobody trying
to garner his first few cronypoints by taking a shot at Chevdo.
Responding to Chevdo's tongue-in-cheek suggestion that if he were
nailed up to a crucifix, cronymobsters would still accuse him of
having a 'persecution complex', Michael thought that a hilarious
rejoinder would be to request 'experimental data to test this
hypothesis', in otherwords, Michael would like to crucify me. Pretty
hillarious stuff, Michael. What's the 'R' stand for? Retard? Runt?
Rodent? Take your pick, I suppose.
John Blankenship - This twit jumped in after I asked about prices for
a piece of gear somebody from the company that makes it blatantly
spammed the group about, with a link to the company's website that did
not have prices of the gear he was hawking. Anyway, John decided to
tell me that he had no problem finding the prices on the website.
Whether he was lying or not is anyone's guess because he didn't reveal
the price to me when he told me how easily he found it. I think John
was probably making a very limp attempt at scoring some cronypoints
but he could just be a run of the mill troll operating independently.
Willie K Yee, MD - This idiotic troll decided to post a new thread on
July 16th, 2006 asking if 'Chevdo is still around' and if 'Phil is
still around' and if 'Chevdo is the new Phil'. Phil, apparently is
someone of the many previous victims of the mob, one of the many
victims they've accused me of being. Yee is one of the lowest forms
of cronymob suckup, on par with audioaesthetic for generating new
threads for no purpose other than harassment.
jwvm - Capitolized on Yee's post to respond and announce that previous
victim 'Phil' is 'smarter than Chevdo'. This nobody is obviously
looking to score some cronypoints.
soeirntnpsro - obscure independent troll who apparently wants to
manipulate the cronymob into helping him attack his personal nemesis
'simkatu', by telling the cronymob that Chevdo = simkatu.
Soeirntnpsro suddenly appeared after the second posting of the FAQ,
starting a new 'Chevdo thread', this time accusing me of being someone
called 'simkatu'. I don't get the impression there was ever a
concerted cronymob effort against 'simkatu', though, and they probably
won't be enthused to join him in attacking 'simkatu' unless he starts
sucking up to them rather than simply trying to manipulate them to do
his bidding.
Dale - responded to soeirntnpsro's post with a paste of 'cheesedogs'
first post. Cheesedog is the name that 'audioaesthetic' calls me,
which is supposed to be insulting, I guess. It's a given that anyone
using the name 'cheesedog' is a sock-puppet of audioaesthetic's
(sock-puppets are additional posting identities used by a single
person, often used to agree with and support his own postings under
his standard name or pseudonym).
oldphart: probably another audioaesthetic sock-puppet, or a 'geezer'
sock-puppet. His devastating insult was to claim that this FAQ is
poorly written, full of spelling and grammar errors, and obviously the
work of someone of high-school age. Ouch! Truth is, I never use
'spell-check' software (or more properly, 'spelling checking
software'), mainly due to its propensity to allow properly spelled but
improperly chosen words through, and because I am a very good speller,
though I usually do look up any word I want to use that I think I
might be spelling wrong. I've always made an effort to write as
clearly and directly as possible, and using proper grammar tends to
help with that. I'm sure you'll find this FAQ riddled with comma
splices, for example, but that would be the extent of the bad grammar.
I think that the fact that he felt the need to insult my writing is a
result of his recognizing how well-written this FAQ is, and what a
formidable mind is behind it.
William Sommerwick - long time crony, apparently the main abuser of
the victim known as 'Phil'. The Phil vs. William saga doesn't seem to
inspire the entire cronymob as much as the Cronymob vs. Chevdo saga,
though. Some of the cronymob's victims are victimized on a limited
basis, without all of the members of the mob participating. In fact
it may be useful to differentiate between victims like Phil, and
'super-victims' like Chevdo. Super-victims not only cause the entire
mob to participate in the attack, they are also the chief conduit
whereby new recruits announce their intentions to be part of the
cronymob by using the super-victim as their first target; an
initiation of sorts. They probably feel safe doing so, knowing that
they will get a universal thumbs up, whereas if they were to join a
limited attack on a victim, they might be concerned that they could be
jumping into what is simply a heated argument, rather than a mob
attack.
0junk4me - Just a run-of-the-mill newbie crony-suckup, looking to move
up in the heirarchy by joining the attack. His vector into the mob
was the thread William Yee created for the specific purpose of abusing
Chevdo.
Harvey Gerst - "Hey, you dumb, ****head ****wad, what more do I hafta
do to get on your
goddamn list? Mike Rivers is currently about 50 feet away as I type
this. He came up to visit after we both went to the NAMM show in
Austin. If that doesn't qualify me for the Cronymob, what does?". -
Harvey Gerst. See the * note at the end of the this section for
explaination of Harvey's statement.
Richard Smol - another obscure moron who begged to be on this list.
Now, if people begging to get on this list isn't prima facie evidence
of the existence of the cronymob, I don't know what else could
possibly provide that verification. The fact that cronymob leaders
vehemently deny existence of the cronymob while cronymob wannabes and
suckups beg to get on this list, is laughably ironic.
Jim Gilliland - "And even Harvey didn't make the list. Yet there are
a few names on
there that I don't even recognize. I think it's the work of an
amateur.". Jim's statement appears to be part of the growing trend of
the cronymobsters reacting to the posting of this FAQ by admitting
that the cronymob does in fact exist, and even going so far as to
openly celebrate its canonization by this FAQ. But apparently, a
'professional victim' would've done a better job of documenting the
cronymob, according to Jim (which is a terrible sitcom, BTW, but not
as bad as Reba).
Julian - Yet another dim-witted crony wannabe who is otherwise nobody.
* (note: there have been others that should have been added to the FAQ
since the last posting, but I simply didn't have time to add them when
they posted their drivel, but that's ok because they are so desperate
for cronypoints, as soon as they discover they didn't make it to the
FAQ this week, they'll ramp up their efforts and make sure I don't
miss them next time around.)