Local Yokel
Posts: 1494
Joined: 2/4/2007 From: Somerset, U.K. Status: offline
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I’ve read the ‘TO Erik Rutins’ thread that Chickenboy posted, and I take it that the charge is that 5thGuardsTankArmy is another incarnation of Rudolf/AFA/TOErikRutins. Obviously some people also believe this to be the same person as Japan. Perhaps so, perhaps not – I don’t know, and I assume that the only people who can actually tell are the forum moderators. If you suspect someone of posting a fabricated combat report as a trolling exercise, what on earth do you expect to gain by making accusations about him the accuracy of which you will never be able to establish? The moment you do that, he’s hooked you and he’s won. Better to disregard him. Alternatively, you can PM a moderator with your suspicions and the moderator can take such action as he thinks appropriate – that, surely, is what he’s there for. Suppose that the OP is not the troll you imagine him to be but a genuine new contributor. In that case you’ve just accused him of being utterly dishonest, and he’s entitled to be incandescent at being treated thus. And the fact that he does not react in precisely the way that you would react if you were equally incandescent is no proof whatsoever that he is the liar you accused him of being. Taking on the role of voluntary forum policeman is a course fraught with danger. It’s all too easy to stray from there into the territory of vigilante justice, and I’ve seen uncomfortable similarities between some postings in this thread and ‘let’s all gang up on Joey’ behaviour that I remember seeing in the playground. All the more disturbing because some of the accusations are manifestly wrong: quote:
ORIGINAL: Canoerebel “7. All of this was done so that he could present a remarkable, stirring, AMAZING combat report showing utter destruction of the biggest Allied fleet of all time in 1944....without a scratch to a single Japanese surface vessel!” To be contrasted with: quote:
ORIGINAL: 5thGuardsTankArmy “Day Time Surface Combat, near Koepang at 68,116, Range 18,000 Yards Japanese aircraft no flights Japanese aircraft losses No Japanese losses Japanese Ships CA Aoba, Shell hits 46, and is sunk CA Kinugasa, Shell hits 18, and is sunk CA Furutaka, Shell hits 12, and is sunk CA Kako, Shell hits 47, and is sunk DD Kagero, Shell hits 9 DD Kuroshio, Shell hits 1 DD Yukikaze, Shell hits 2, heavy fires DD Hayashio DD Maikaze, Shell hits 1 DD Isokaze, Shell hits 5, on fire DD Shiranui Allied Ships BB Massachusetts, Torpedo hits 6, on fire, heavy damage BC Renown, Torpedo hits 2, on fire, heavy damage BB Richelieu CA Boston, Shell hits 1 CA Shropshire, Shell hits 1 CA Dorsetshire CA London, Shell hits 1, on fire CA Cornwall, Shell hits 2 CA Exeter, Shell hits 2, on fire CL Java CL Emerald CL Ceylon CL Kenya CL Cleveland CL Montpelier DD Picking DD William Porter DD Stephen Potter, Shell hits 1 DD Halsey Powell, Shell hits 2 DD Pringle, Shell hits 1 DD Radford DD Abner Read DD Remey DD Renshaw DD Saufley, Shell hits 2, on fire” Of course you can argue that the OP slipped these Japanese losses in to lend authenticity to his report. But that is beside the point: if you are going to play policeman and prosecutor, you had better be sure that you make accurate accusations, for you are otherwise no better than the person you seek to demean. I am sorry to be at odds with a number of posters whose opinions I respect, but it remains my view that some of the posts levelled against this thread’s OP reflect no credit on their authors. I would rather be thought a fool for treating ten trolls with courtesy and consideration than wrongly condemn a single genuine contributor.
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