It seems I have gained a “fan” or two over the last week. But this guy is my current favourite. Shutting down the arch-general mailing list for a day resulted in me getting the following email:

Subject: wrong move

Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2012 15:16:03 +0100

From: P .NIKOLIC <p.nikolic1@btinternet.com>

To: Allan McRae <allan@archlinux.org> Very bad move . You will just inflame it for later if you have not learnt that yet what

are you doing running a mail list .. ?.. Pete .

Thanks Pete. Lets see who gets angry at me the most…

Subject: List admin

Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2012 10:42:44 +0100

From: P .NIKOLIC <p.nikolic1@btinternet.com>

To: arch-general-owner@archlinux.org I wish to know who is the main arch-general@archlinux.org admin i wish to start a vote to remove Allan McRae

or at least demote him . He appears to be prone to panic attacks and

ill judged moves ie shutting the list down .. Before anyone says anything else i run 4 lists myself , all motor sport

related . The other point is if certain people would just answer the question

instead of going off on some tangent it would help lessen the wars You may not agree that is not my problem i see what i see this list

needs someone that does NOT panic Pete

It would be a fair assumption that if I have the ability to shut down an email list, then I might have administrator access… A lack of reply and this email arrives:

Subject: Mail owner

Date: Mon, 1 Oct 2012 08:26:01 +0100

From: P .NIKOLIC <p.nikolic1@btinternet.com>

To: arch-general-owner@archlinux.org I am once again calling for the removal of Allan McRae as an

unsuitable person to be in control of a mailing list , He is Childish despotic offensive officious obnoxious and is

stomping around like some little Hitler . He has go to GO Pete

The use of “despotic” was particular non-inventive given that was already used on the arch-general mailing list earlier that day. So the Godwinism was the best that could be done.

I subtly mentioned these emails in a reply to arch-general in order to let him know that I have seen them. That resulted in:

Subject: Un warrented transference of mails to list

Date: Mon, 1 Oct 2012 19:07:26 +0100

From: P .NIKOLIC <p.nikolic1@btinternet.com>

To: Allan McRae <allan@archlinux.org> Excuse me . I kept OFF the list for a reason , you are in a flat out panic spin

this shows a mile off by your actions . If you are unwilling to run the list and let it run then i suggest

you retire and let someone else do the job . You are getting as bad if not worse than some of the bird brains on

the suse lists that is the reason a good number of new users have

appeared here Like me they were getting sick of the blatant junk from

the list owners . This mail was sent OFF list for a reason get with it . Oh and i still say RETIRE if you cant handle it .. Pete

If you did not want emails to be public, perhaps you should not have sent them to an email address that you had no idea who the recipient was. Or, even better, just do not send them at all. I actually made an exception to not answering any of these emails and replied with that friendly piece of advise.

But that was not the end of it…

Subject: tosser

Date: Wed, 3 Oct 2012 08:53:15 +0100

From: P .NIKOLIC <p.nikolic1@btinternet.com>

To: Allan McRae <allan@archlinux.org> Allan you are by far the biggest silly little boy i have ever had the

misfortune to stumble on. How the Arch Linux community ever managed to get a twat like you as

the mailing list owner i will never know but hey there will soon be a

new mailing list . Ban my aunt fanny word of warning WATCH your list you

think you have stopped me THINK AGAIN 🙂 … Oh and IP filtering

will get you nowhere at all have fun Pete .

I feel sad for his inability to form good insults. Using “biggest” and “little” together shows a poor grasp of the English language. This would be fine for non-native speakers, but from his email address I conclude that he is in the UK and given there is a person who dislikes immigrants with the same name on Google+ (who has me in a circle…), I will assume he is a native English speaker too.

Which finally gets me to the point of this post. It appears Pete will soon be creating a mailing list where people can rant about Arch Linux and the direction it is moving all they want with no fear of being censored. Thanks Pete!