The v-word (was: [Wikipedia-l] User pages)

Mon Nov 25 23:04:57 UTC 2002

Jonathan Walther wrote:

> On Mon, Nov 25, 2002 at 04:51:58PM +0100, Erik Moeller wrote:
>
>> *sigh* Clutch is a vandal, there's no doubt about it. Even when Lir was
>> still unbanned, he kept changing her page, linking to articles about 
>> "good taste"
>> to help her develop "the good taste she lacks", kept reverting her 
>> attempts
>> to restore the page and threatened to do so until Lir would "call him 
>> uncle"
>> (and not in the uncle Ed sense, I presume). Now that Lir is banned, 
>> he is,
>
> This is possibly a cultural difference.  Your address and name indicates
> you are German.  In English, when you make someone "holler uncle!" it
> means "do you give up now?"  It is specifically used when someone is
> being an unbearable annoyance, so you sit on them, and you don't let
> them up until they indicate they recognize they have been an annoyance
> and are prepared to change, by hollering "uncle!"  It's a fine old
> tradition, rarely used by people who are older than school age. 

Rarely used by them because it's the tactic of a schoolyard bully.  A 
lot of effort has been put by British Columbia schools in recent years 
to prevent this kind of bullying that amounts to lynch mob justice.

Eclecticology