Oh, joy. Now mikeserv has acquired using dd as a new pet peeve.

@Gilles Can't you just ignore him? Or is that a dumb question?

@FaheemMitha I wish. The problem is that he insists on leaving trolling (incorrect and often aggressive) comments on my answers.

@Gilles And you can't ignore those comments? Like, pretend they were never written?

@FaheemMitha No, because they show up in my inbox

I don't think SE has an ignore feature like in IRC.

@Gilles Ok, but you don't have to respond to them.

I mean, you don't even have to read them.

There is no law saying you have to read comments on an answer.

@FaheemMitha I don't reply to them.

@Gilles ok

You just object to receiving them?

@FaheemMitha I have to read them and find out that it's by him

the answers haven't really helped

@Gilles yes, I see. And even if you ignore it, other users can read it. And might expect you to respond.

@FaheemMitha Yes. Yesterday the asker asked why my answer was downvoted. I wonder what to tell him.

There was a slurry of comments by mikeserv, where he claimed a lot of things I wrote were wrong. In this case, he didn't have anything to propose, he just said he didn't believe a bunch of things, when looking them up in the manual would have backed me up.

@Gilles The best thing would be to ask SE to enforce a permanent ban on him commenting on your posts. But from the question you linked to, it seems they can't or won't do that.

The comments have since been removed.

Since you apparently make a policy to not comment on his answers/questions.

Should I tell the asker to ignore the downvote, it's just a troll who's after me?

@Gilles That's certainly a reasonable option.

I don't want to get him in mikeserv's bullying list.

But everyone gets downvoted some of the time.

For no reason, often.

@Gilles I don't think Mike is that crazy.

And if he is, that would be grounds for more drastic action.

@FaheemMitha I checked: the number of downvotes that I receive on U&L increased a lot since mikeserv started his campaign against me.

@Gilles that's bad. Do they ever get reversed?

like, 3x more or something.

@Gilles we don't want you to feel harassed. you're a valuable member of this community.

@FaheemMitha No. Compared with his voting patterns and my posting rate, it's still very little.

As I am sure you are aware.

Have you asked SE to tell him to stop commenting on your posts?

If it isn't an option, they will tell you. Or the mods, whatever.

He doesn't systematically downvote me, only when I fail to rub him right on one of his pet topics. If I don't mention any of his pet topics (initramfs, dd, quoting variable expansions, ...) he does upvote some of my answers.

@Gilles how can you tell? timing?

@FaheemMitha I did. And for a while he did.

Or because he leaves comments?

@FaheemMitha yes

At some point the mods told me to stop commenting on his posts or replying to his comments on pains of suspension, and that they'd told him the same thing.

Which suited me fine because I was already doing that.

But evidently they're no longer enforcing that.

mikeserv has changed a bit. He used to be very insulting in his comments. Now he's polite on the surface, though his discourse is still bent on exposing me for an incompetent.

And I don't claim to be an expert, not like, say, Stéphane.

But mikeserv's comments invariably show that there's something he doesn't get, and he blames me for that.

On a personal note I wish I could ignore him. But I'm also uncomfortable leaving his incorrect-but-not-obviously-so comments uncorrected.

I'm a bit surprised that I seem to be the only person he's latched onto.

@Gilles yes, I see.

@Gilles maybe ask them to go back to enforcing it? or are you uncomfortable doing that?

@Gilles: Why don't you show what points he was incorrect, then let community check them?

@cuonglm That's what I did at first. It led to long stream of comments with neither side backing down, which was just wasted time and noise.

@cuonglm I don't know if that is useful. This just devolves into argumentation.

@FaheemMitha I did. I didn't get a reply.

I don't know what else to do. But I can't go on like this.

And it is not like this site is filled with experts. Most people don't know or care about the finer points of whatever it is.

@Gilles What mechanism did you use? Email, comment/post somewhere?

@Gilles: I mean you can left all things in comment, then raise a question. So Community experts can read and check.

Now when I write a post I start wondering which pet peeve of mikeserv I'm going to trigger. Should I mikeserv-proof my post by explaining why I choose a particular tool that he doesn't like and why his favorite tool doesn't work for this job? And invariably I don't, because it would be totally useless to the rest of the audience, and because some of his peeves are subjective (e.g. what he considers clear code wouldn't pass code review in any serious professional environment).

I have seen many times that @StéphaneChazelas will give you great answers if you raise an appropriate question from comment discussion.

@FaheemMitha chat and flags

@Gilles ok

@cuonglm often the question in question would be the one I'm answering in the first place

@Gilles well, I wish I could help. If there is any way I can, please let me know. And I can't speak for other users here, but I'm sure all the regulars (and probably many others) don't want to see you quit the site out of disgust.

While we are not all friends here (we mostly don't really know each other) we should strive to keep this a courteous professional atmosphere.

@FaheemMitha Thank you

I wonder if I should take the leap and upgrade to jessie or wait.

hi all, Does anybody know the best web page to read "In the beginning was the command-line" and Neal Stephenson's comments to it. I saw a page a few days ago which had both his comments and the essay in a paragraph -style. One or two paragraphs of what is being told or shared and then Neal's take on that but can't find it, can somebody find it ? And it's not cristal.inria.fr/~weis/info/commandline.html unfortunately.

@FaheemMitha: I have updated to jessie, everything is fine.

@shirish Neal's comments on his own essay? Never seen that.

@shirish - the essay was somebody else's neal added to it.

@FaheemMitha hey :)

@shirish hi.

sorry meant the added comments by Garret Birkel in 2004.

see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Beginning..._Was_the_Command_Line

unfortunately there is no nice link to the Garret Birkel comments alongwith the essay anywhere on that page.

damn it, must have been blind, it's not there . This is the one I'm talking about garote.bdmonkeys.net/commandline

have read it half-way through, reading the rest of it.

Makes for some interesting historical essay/thoughts and ideas.

That's a good essay. My favorite is still:

still what ?

Hacker with bullhorn: "Save your money! Accept one of our free tanks! It is invulnerable, and can drive across rocks and swamps at ninety miles an hour while getting a hundred miles to the gallon!"

to

true :)

"Can't you see that everyone is buying station wagons?"

Those are immortal words.

love that quote :)

true :)

"Stay away from my house, you freak!" :-)

:)

I don't think the comments add much to the piece. But ymmv.

ymmv ?

@shirish your mileage may vary.

ah thanx :)

I like the comments as they help to break down the essay in manageable chunks as well.

otherwise it's a big read to do in one sitting.