On Apr 5, 2005 8:18 PM, B. K. Oxley (binkley) <binkley / alumni.rice.edu> wrote:
> Luke Graham wrote:
> > Could it be??? Shouldnt the flash have turned it to stone???
> >
> > If you follow the link to his coach, you will notice he worked for S+M
> > Components...
> > nothin suss! ;) I think hed have to enjoy S&M to take Ilias on as a student.
> 
> I'm new to ruby-talk.  Why the pile-on for this fellow?  I looked
> through some of the material linked, and his most recent posts since I
> joined, and he seems "mostly harmless" (in the words of Douglas Adams).
> 
> I thought Ruby was the language for nice people.  Why all the snippy
> remarks?

Others have explained their points of view in this thread already, but
I want to give my position, seeing as I was the one being nasty.

Ilias is a chronic time-waster. He may not be a troll in the true
sense of the word, but the effect is the same. The few posts Ive made
-about- him pale in comparison to the list traffic -to-
and -from- him, however it is true that threads like this one are part
of his success. The only way to win is to not play, and I dont believe
this list is ready to do that yet, so I dont see any harm in a couple
more mails. I know thats an illogical view, and that every post I make
adds victory points to his score, but Im only human and dont always
make sense.

For me, the biggest effect he has is to cause a sense of wonder that
bright people like JEG2 would waste even a minute of their lives
responding to him, once they realised what he was. After a few minutes
of research, its obvious that even his more interesting questions act
as lures to keep the threads going until "closed". I saw a post where
he mentioned something about someone acting as a "cyber-doctor", so I
guess hes been remotely analysed many times, but I think in the end
hes probably just lonely and confused. It doesnt make him any less
irritating.

-- 
spooq