Someone mentioned that there weren't many alternatives to driving to Montreal and I replied that Greyhound still operates service on the old Vermont Transit route. Go back through the thread and let me know who was the first person to mention Bolt Bus. If you feel the need to go off on tangents (like mentioning Bolt Bus at all) at least don't submit complete fabrications ("Bolt Bus is non-union") as fact.
Yep. We got a
That Guy here. If you're a regular on RR.net you know who
That Guy is.
That Guys are everywhere. There could be a mundane thread about "What's That Smell On My Train This Morning?". And a number of posters positing theories about what that smell was on the train this morning. One poster observes that one time he was on this train that slammed the brakes after blowing a signal...and he smelled something. Maybe that meant something, maybe it didn't...he's just sayin'.
And
That Guy shows up. Not because he has any interest whatsoever in the scintillating discussion about what that smell was on the train this morning...but because the poster who mentioned the brakes slammed after the train passed what he thought was a restricting signal.
That Guy is so offended that anyone could mistake a restricted signal for [something else it really is, but who the hell cares] he proceeds to lecture the entire board about the rulebook. Accuse people of spreading misinformation. Goad other people into a good long catfight about this signaling rulebook vs. that signaling rulebook, and dig in and dig in with ever more obscure minutia about what this red light over that red light means because
this asshole over here must be proved fucking wrong for all that is right and pure in the world.
And the rest of the posters just look at this with mouth agape. Or shuffle away quietly. They just want to know what that smell was on the train this morning. Maybe shoot the shit about ideas for making the train not smell like that. Or...maybe...smell like daisies instead! And they're confused because that's what the thread title still says, but all they see is
That Guy...and occasionally other
That Guys piling on...lecturing about what the little red lights by the track mean. When they don't know much less care.
That Guy will insist his motives are purely altruistic. He's really, really
interested, he swears. Like, several times over the course of the thread! It just troubles him ever so much that there's misinformation out there. And by golly, it's his sacred duty to correct it. But he won't, ever, try to relate his factoid tangent to the topic at-hand.
Which is...what was that smell on the train this morning. No. Somebody in a throwaway anecdote--"Blah blah blah...saw signal...brakes slammed...ooh, what's that smell? I dunno what it means."--got a completely fucking irrelevant detail about a signal wrong. Therefore...this thread is now about signals and the galling wrongness of what that other guy said in 4 words cherry picked from 1 post. And everyone else starts backing away slowly, because this discussion is useless now.
That Guy doesn't have anything to say about the smell.
That Guy doesn't appear to have read one single post about the smell.
That Guy will disappear back do lurking or doodling in some obscure corner of the site the second it does get back on-topic. Or the thread will just wither and die or change the subject. Because this isn't the first time
That Guy has shown up. And it sure won't be the last.
For all his protestations to the contrary,
That Guy doesn't really give a shit what's being discussed. He just takes satisfaction in springing gotchas and setting semantic traps. The more he does it, the more
That Guy's dripping contempt for discussion becomes plainly obvious.
That Guy has no intention of being a participant in the community. That's why he's
That Guy and not Joe Poster.
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