From: robert.mcclenon@verizon.net 
  
 There are either two or three trolls posting to news.groups currently. 
 Here are just a few observations.  The most flagrant of the trolls at 
 this point is the one who was previously 'frogging' as Guy Macon with 
 a return address of guy.macon@trashmail.net.  Someone asked why Guy 
 Macon was a target for troll-frogging.  I have no evidence that there 
 was more than one troll claiming to be Guy Macon.  I offered a few 
 comments, and so now that troll is claiming to be Robert McClenon with 
 a return address of robert.mcclenon@trashmail.net.  Now the troll is 
 threatening to post lists of YES votes to ongoing RFDs, and is 
 including a demunged list of YES votes on colx.  This troll posts from 
 Google.  He also makes taunting references to Lionel (Lauer). 
  
 There is another troll, or perhaps the same troll using a different 
 gateway, who then responds to some of those trolls identifying them 
 correctly as forgeries by a troll, and says that the troll is Steve 
 Young, who also posts as Orville Wright.  This is clearly intended to 
 confuse.  Steve Young, who posts from ohio.net, has repeatedly stated 
 that he is not Orville Wright.  Orville Wright posts from Google. 
 Perhaps this inconsistent information being provided by posters who 
 are alleged to be the same is a bot-breaker, intended to cause any 
 bots that are reading news.groups and posting to it to loop. 
  
 I have no reason to think that Orville Wright is a sock-puppet for 
 Steve Young, or that Steve Young is a sock-puppet for Orville Wright. 
 They have a few common characteristics, such as glee in taunting 
 Lionel, and being flamers and trolls, but that doesn't prove much. 
 This is Usenet, and Usenet has flamers and trolls, and Lionel has 
 provoked a few of them in the past. 
  
 There is another troll who posted a supposed 5th RFD for 
 rec.photo.digital from att.net. 
  
 I have LARTed the froggeries to Google as Usenet abuse.  As has been 
 mentioned in the last few days, we can't be sure how serious Google 
 will be about acting on them.  I have stated that the troll is trying 
 to disrupt the Usenet newsgroup creation process and so is 
 jeopardizing the long-term value of Usenet as a resource for Google to 
 archive. 
  
 The 5th RFD and other trolling and frogging might be an argument for a 
 moderated news.admin.new-groups or news.admin-config.  I would vote 
 for one if a reasonable proposal was made.  However, the threats to 
 post lists of demunged addresses along with an actual list of demunged 
 addresses are being multiply posted to subject groups.  That appears 
 to prove that Usenet is Usenet, and that there are limits to what can 
 be done to clean it up. 
  
 We need a hobbit hero at this point, either Pippin Took to slay the 
 troll with the sword or Bilbo Baggins to trick trolls into arguing 
 until the sun rises and they turn to stone.  Whether the latter will 
 work depends on which of the two races of trolls they belong to. 
  
 I have a comment to the misc.writing.screenplays regulars who have 
 been complaining about their kook.  If they have been watching, then 
 they can see that their problem is not unique, and that 
 rec.photo.digital has its own kooks.   (I acknowledge that the mws 
 people have stopped saying that their situation is unique.) 
  
 I appreciate the difficult poorly paid work done by the Usenet 
 Volunteer Votetakers, and would suggest that the NAN team should 
 authorize time-and-a-half for all votes on existing CFVs where there 
 has been a threat to disrupt the voting process, and 
 double-time-and-a-half on the RPD reorganization because of the 
 difficulty of sorting out genuine NO votes from false NO votes. 
 Simply excluding all votes from trolls is not satisfactory.  Trolls 
 who pass the Turing test have a right to vote if they are actual 
 individual members of a sentient race, but sock-puppets of trolls who 
 pass the Turing test do not have a right to vote.  The Turing test has 
 its limitations on Usenet.  It can distinguish a human from a bot, but 
 it cannot reliably determine whether multiple personae are actually 
 multiple humans or a single human. 
  
 It is said that Tim Skirvin's killfile daemons Nik and Kile post 
 NoCeMs to the Usenet, but they do not have a right to vote, and I am 
 sure that if they did try to vote, Skirv would take disciplinary 
 action against them.  They have not passed the Turing test.  Their 
 writings show intelligence, but they don't answer questions.  However, 
 they are one of the easier cases to deal with.  They are not trolls; 
 they are daemons. 
  
 Could the FMJ votes have been a preliminary exercise in phony voting 
 by the RPD trolls to see what they could get away with? 
  
      - -     Bob McClenon 
  
 --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05 
  * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)