What is a troll, anyway? A recent exchange on the Blue Board prompts me to ask the question.
Ah, this seems too good to be true, but it is. The poster known as "Melinda" has recently been expressing rather vehement criticism of Blue Board Moderator R. Paul Martin. Melinda has been saying things like this:
And for this the good Moderator is calling Melinda a troll! Huh?
Does he not see the similarity of Melinda's posts to Chris Albertson's posts? Apparently not, because he calls Melinda a troll for daring to express opinions about him that are actually quite similar to Albertson's opinions about some of Martin's colleagues, for being inaccurate on some historical facts, just as Albertson is so often inaccurate, for "hoping that WBAI will die", as Albertson has said, while urging people NOT to contribute to the Emergency Transmitter Fund.**
Yes, Albertson says this kind of stuff all the time, and yet Mr. Martin has never called him a troll, and in fact has protected Albertson's right to spew his half-truths day after day. It's all about free speech, you say? But then why did Martin go to such great lengths to silence one of the voices of opposition to Albertson? This pure hypocrisy, compounded by his misguided hero-worship of Pacifica's ancient mariner, who is the Albie-tross around BAI's neck, leads us to this sad conclusion, ladies and gentlemen (and everyone else).
I've always enjoyed the irony of the saying about Microsoft Windows that: "The Operating System IS the virus". Now I'm starting to appreciate yet another irony: that on the Blue Board, "The Moderator IS the Troll".
** By contrast, we're urging everyone to contribute to the Emergency Transmitter Fund to save WBAI, which could indeed go off the air if it fails to make its back payments for the transmitter by March 31, and beyond that, to make on-time payments for the next 5 months.
Donate here: http://give2WBAI.org
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