Topic: How to Meet Morons (Page 1 of 1)

1. Start a Web site.
2. Include a contact form.

Example:

I visited the house used in the filming of 1979's The Amityville Horror many years ago, as it was located in the hometown of my then-girlfriend. I subsequently wrote a story about it, which became one of the first sites that made up The Big Waste of Space.

Now, the picture is lame and the story isn't very interesting, but for some reason that page remains one of the most popular on that site. Unfortunately, it also attracts an inordinate number of complete idiots.

Even though I've title the page The Amityville Horror Movie House, even though the first paragraph reads, "... this is the actual house from The Amityville Horror ? the one where it was filmed, not the one that had the horror," and even though I've included both a header and a footer in bold red that says, "I don't know how to make this any clearer. This is not the house in Amityville, New York. This is the one used in the original movie. Stop e-mailing me with 'corrections,'" I still get complete morons telling me it's not the legendary house in Amityville.

Some are more arrogant than others:

quote:

---

FROM: Daniel Harmer
SUBJECT: Amityville

That's not the house involved in the legend. You're wrong. Why don't you check your facts?


SOURCE: I had the misfortune of stumbling across it.

---

My reply was quite simple:

quote:

---

Why don't you read the bold, red text?

Wesley Treat
www.wesleytreat.com

---

Rather than doing as I suggested, Mr. Harmer became even more of a condescending twat:

quote:

---

What do you mean?

All I do is offer constructive criticism and you come back all offended with something that doesn't even make sense. There is no bold red text in the email and even if there was, why would you tell me to read it when I automatically would??!

God. Your email address/domainl is well chosen.

'Treat'? More like punishment! LOLZ!

Provide the correct details or get the crap off the Internet, sir!

-- Daniel Harmer.

---

At least he called me "sir."

Again, my reply was simple:

quote:

---

The bold, red text on the page about the Amityville house, which you incorrectly assumed I thought was the one involved in the legend.

http://bigwaste.com/photos/nj/amityville/

Wesley Treat
www.wesleytreat.com

---

Anyone want to place bets on what his next complaint will be?

I think you need to make the red text bigger, brighter, and maybe set it with a yellow background color. 24pt font should be big enough. It probably will reduce the number of idiots by 50%. Some people still won't get it unfortunately.

how about using the <blink> tag on that line.

Later,

C:\

and make sure to nest it in a <font size=7 color=red>

<blink>

Just kidding!

Fight the good fight, you're like Maddox!

Okay, I've concluded this is a total hosejob ...

quote:

---

Don't take that tone with me. Maybe you should mention on the page that it's not the one involved in the legend. Your website therefore is a TOTAL WASTE OF TIME.

I caught you out! You should post our conversation as a gesture of being man enough to admit that you really do have little idea when it comes to anything and are also bloody rude in the bargain when you're caught out! Otherwise, you're more like 'Wesley Mistreat' (You mistreat / I love you / Down in limboooooo' as that song went but in this case it's more like 'I laugh at you / Down in limboooo')

Daniel Harmer.

---

Idiot.

Just a side note:

I grew up in Lindenhurst, NY which is the next town over from Amityville. The actual horror house was about 5 minutes away from me.

<harmless_speculation>
I was expecting him to claim that you only put the text up after he 'corrected' you. Despite the fact that the page is old and hasn't been edited for quite some time. Maybe if you put the information that tells that it's the one used in the filming, not in the legend, in some kind of self-spawning popup. Close one, it opens two more, each of those two opens two more, and so on, and so on... but target it by IP. You can probably find the IP he uses (assuming its static, which it may not be) in the routing headers of his email...
</harmless_speculation>

You obviously are dealing with the internet's particular brand of absolute morons. The ones who will call you an idiot, and then get uppity and rude when they suspect you've caught them out, whilst at the same time protesting innocence and accusing you of the same behaviour. You could always comply with whathe wants. Post the email thread on a page in his site, along with evidence (such as the modification time of the Amityville page) that shows him to be the moron we all suspect him of being.


Justice 4 Pat Richard

I'm with Skaarj here. Maybe posting this email conversation at the bottom of the page will dissuade further idiots from writing in with "corrections." At the very least it will offer some comic relief to people who actually possess brains.

You can pretty much tell straight off when someone offering a "correction" is going to be a complete jerk. The correction is usually rude and curt, like the one above. I will admit to having written suggestions/corrections to sites that discuss issues that interest me (mostly academic). When I do this, I make sure to be as polite as possible (and to allow for the possibility that I misunderstood the writer of the website). Unfortunately, I seem to be in the minority.

But then there are the borderline cases. I once had a guy email me spewing venom and curses. I can't remember what it was about, but I politely corrected his misunderstanding and was shocked when he emailed me back the next day with an apology. That one, I must admit, confused me.


___________________________
Suho: www.liminality.org | Cell 270 | Sig Rotator | the Fellowship of Sup

a troll - how cute...

have you considered that the person may be the kind of moron who gets a kick out of the fact that you're fed up with people correcting your info, as opposed to the kind of moron who doesn't understand the info stated?

just a thought...

Heehee - I just love to hate people like that. Unfortunately, his type are not rare. I hope you don't let it get to you.

Thanks for the giggle, though!