I am oddly introspective as I write this tonight. The Active Worlds community is in something of a state of flux right now. Its discussion forum is being plagued by a troll called ‘Freedomf’. If you’ve ever read the comments of a certain user by the name of syntaxgs on Digg, think of Freedomf as a malicious version of syntaxgs and you’ll have a fair approximation of the kind of uproar she causes on a monthly (and sometimes daily) basis.

Tom the moderator (who is also the primary moderator for the virtual reality of Active Worlds itself as well as the forum) does not believe that she is a troll, or at least shouldn’t be banned, because she doesn’t exhibit some of the more usual trollish behavior like calling users names, spamming threads, and so on. Rather, she deliberately incites other users to react to her feigned idiocy by starting threads about “Lynsie Lowhand” and other similar caricaturizations of peoples’ names and activities. This is a point of disagreement that has sharply divided a lot of the movers and shakers in Active Worlds into two camps; those who want her banned for the sake of peace and quiet and those who think she should just be ignored and allowed to look mean and petty.