Indeed, but I have remedied my ignorance.
As I stated in my last post, I was (and still am) unable to view Catboy’s pubic profile, from which I am accustomed to accessing a person’s previous posts. I have since realized I can view his posting history by clicking his name, and clicking “Find more posts by Catboy” from the drop-down list.
After reviewing some of Catboy’s posts, I must retract my implicit charge of Catboy being a true troll. While often snide, arrogant, condescending, intolerant, short-sighted, and and just plain mean, Catboy’s comments seem to express genuine views he has, and are an honest attempt to contribute. Other comments are less emotional, and are laudable, intelligent contributions.
However, he does explicitly say “usually I don’t think twice before trolling” ( here), admitting that he does, at times, troll. How to reconcile his assertion that he trolls, yet is anti-troll, I do now know.
While I don’t know his motivations for sometimes trolling and sometimes contributing, I do know that in general he comes off as angry, pretentious, and difficult to interact with, and I know I am not alone in this assessment. Given this, I will adjust accordingly any future posts to which he is a party in the discussion.
Furthermore, while I have taken the time to review his posting history, it is both impractical and inappropriate to assume all readers should do so in order to “get him.” Thus, I suspect he will continue to incite conflict on the forums, due to a general inconsistency with how he represents himself.
Honestly, no hard feelings Catboy. I’m perplexed more than anything.:o