On 2/21/2013 9:28 PM, David Love wrote: > I think what's really important here is that if I ever hear of > someone looking for a consolidated group of type A personalities, say > for some kind of psychological testing, I know just where to send > them. You must have missed it. It's been done. It was some time ago, and the posts I'd saved have apparently gone to feed a past hard drive crash because I can't find them anymore, but from faulty memory it was something like this. During a usual discussion about, I think, aural vs ETD, this guy suddenly appeared and whipped up an instant argument. He did it very well, and the result raged on for about a week when someone mentioned that he had no point of origin or history. He just appeared and answered a question that hadn't been asked in a way calculated to start a fight. This was pretty strange, so I asked him straight out if he was using us to provide material for a thesis, and he said yes! Next post, he denied it and tried to start another fight. Meanwhile, he had mentioned a state, Pennsylvania, I think though I'm not sure anymore. So I went looking for the major university in the state he mentioned, and read through the faculty lists and such until - Bingo! I found a name match. Using the number from his email address and his name, I did a white pages look up (this was in a short period when there were lots of services to do this for free, which changed shortly after), and got a hit. The number in his email address was his home address number! Outstanding thinking on his part, I thought. Next, I sent an email to the dean of the university (from the web site) describing what was being done and suggesting that he get his minion out of our discussion list, as we didn't appreciate his efforts at our expense. Next, I sent an email to the list with his full name, address (with zip code), and phone number and suggested that anyone who wished to get to know him better could now contact him directly - even face to face. We quit getting posts from him after that, and I've always wondered what affect my letter to the dean had, if any at all. Of course we can still be monitored by anyone for any purpose and never know it, but it was nice to be able to shut this guy down. Ron N
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