Monday, May 2, 2011

Greetings Amazon sellers

Hi -

One of your number hates me because I corrected her on a quiz question she got very wrong.  Not content with that alone, she had to go on to critique my education and professional experience from behind a number of sockpuppets and trolls.

A normal person might learn from this error and move on.  The fellow seller in question is not a normal person.

She has spent more than a year signing into various forums under assumed names attacking me and driving angry traffic to my blog and elsewhere.  Within the last week she signed me up for hundreds of spam emails from Christian marketers, thinking this to be very clever indeed.  She maintains a parody blog of this one.  That's how sick we're talking.

In short, she is obsessed and is cyberstalking me.  Being overweight and torpid, this is the only stalking that she gets around to, seeing as actually getting up and walking somewhere would be a challenge.  I have the world's laziest stalker.

The latest attack is her signing in with a new Amazon seller's forum account - she probably has several, and is likely sockpuppeting any number of threads over there as this is her style - to make one post sending you here.  Do not feed the troll.

Lisa - get help.  Seek professional assistance.  If this continues I'm contacting a lawyer, and any other authorities that can deal with you.

Thank you.

9 comments:

Hail, Columbia said...

You are cordially invited to leave.

Signed,
America

Chris Randolph said...

You speak for all of America, do you?

Why is it that when someone has a bag full of nothing to defend the rotten behavior of the US that the fallback position is that the critic of the idiot behavior should leave?

Anonymous said...

what was the question she got wrong?

Chris Randolph said...

That's an oversimplification on my part.

What happened was that I wouldn't accept "UK/England" and "Scotland" as two separate answers in a question requiring names of European countries. I credited the first as one and then argued that Scotland was covered by "UK." She maintains that Scotland is a different country, and that in fact UK, England and Scotland should have been counted correctly three times.

Anonymous said...

Great Blog! Found you through Amazon of course. Sorry to hear about the situation with your overzealous "fan".

Having lived in England 'tho I feel compelled to mention that they are in fact two separate countries and most English and Scottish people I met over there would become quite incensed if an American failed to understand that point. She muddied the waters however by mentioning UK and England as one answer. No big deal, just couldn't help myself on the England/Scotland issue. Cheers. :D

Chris Randolph said...

Hey Anonymous -

I've been through this a number of times in this in other forums, but Scotland and England both ceased being countries in the early 18th century. They are united as the UK, which is the country. Both are the central homes to national groups and are nations.

I'm not fighting that battle again here but can redirect you to the point comprehensively argued elsewhere.

Similarly Bavaria, Andalusia, Corsica, Sicily (or Texas for that matter) and other regional units with distinct languages and cultures are no longer countries.

No English person has ever complained to me about describing England as a former country. Some Scots (or descent) complain, but among Scottish nationalists I've had some support on this as they understand what was lost from their perspective in 1707.

earthmom said...

Okay so Scotland and England are not separate countries, they are the United Kingdom. How does "Great Britain" factor into all of this?

Nice blog - sorry you're dealing with the stalker. But I'm learning some geography so that's a positive thing!

:> earthmom

Chris Randolph said...

Hi Earthmom -

Great Britain is the island of Britain, which is Scotland, England and Wales. Actually Wales is a part of England for many political administrative purposes, although the Welsh are a different nation (group with a common heritage on a number of counts). Basically it's UK minus N. Ireland.

The island of Britain is "great" in comparison to Brittany in France, which was at one time joined politically to parts of what are now the UK.

Anonymous said...

Heh... I'm a fellow trivia host from far away, reading through other trivia hosts' blogs. My theme this week is "make my trivia format look nothing like my own", so I'm seeing what others do.

Anyhow... the "what counts as a country thing" has certainly come up for me too. At this point, I have them trained to know I'm talking about "sovereign nations as recognized by the UN". So for me, I count UK once and once only, as you did. (Similarly, I'll accept "England" or even "Scotland" as a stand-in for "UK")

Regardless, I couldn't resist linking to the following venn diagram: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/27/British_Isles_Venn_Diagram.png

Cheers! (and good luck with the trivia stalker!)