So the _only_ thing that I have ever actually done _wrong_ that you can
  grab onto is that you think I "misrepresented" your insult as an obvious
  case of a public message?  Why, thank you!  I thought I had done a lot
  more bad things in my life than just that, but since you have found
  absolutely _nothing_ of substance to attack me for besides your pathetic
  outrage over having your incredibly stupid transgression posted under my
  interpretation as it being an obvious public message, I am _honored_.
  But why is that a wrong interpreration, by the way -- please explain why
  your incredibly stupid insult was an instance of _proper_ use of personal
  communication.  If something is _not_ a proper use of a personal means of
  communication when you have been communicating publicly previously in the
  exact same way, is it not a _valid_ conclusion that you made a mistake?
  Just because it makes you appear to be a stinking piece of shit does not
  mean that you have anything to complain about.  You brought this _all_ on
  yourself, buddy.  Small-time newsgroup terrorists who cannot deal with a
  simple correction to their emotionally based propaganda originating in
  stale painful experiences, but who blow up and become so irrational that
  they completely lose track of what they _could_ do to improve their own
  situation (namely: provide _evidence_ backing their opinions, for the
  umpteenth time!), simply need to be shot down.  In time, 90% of those who
  behave this way and get shot down realize the simple corrections to the
  errors of their ways and figure out that they should think and check the
  _facts_ they talk about before posting any ludicrous drivel in the
  future,  The real idiots learn nothing, insist they did nothing wrong,
  and come back to haunt the newsgroup with ever more insane "opinions".
  (Then they will complain that other people do not tolerate differences of
  opinion, despite the fact that _they_ do not tolerate that others post
  opinions differing from theirs, illustrating that the real problem is
  that other people do not agree with _them_, and they cannot argue for
  their opinions, anymore, so anyone who does not agree with them, cannot
  deal with "differing opinions".  You have a mental illness indication in
  two words right there.  Just so you know, Rajappa Iyer, this may happen
  to you some time down the line.  It seems to take an inordinate inability
  to back down from a demonstrably wrong position for it to happen, and you
  have at least admitted that you are vague and remember nothing of value
  about your painful Debian experiences of two years ago, so you could, in
  theory, just hold on to your stupid opinion out of a desire not to lose
  face, which will wane over time, and this stage might not happen to you.)

| Your amusement, such as it is, seems to be a manifestation of your
| psychoses.  I suggest that you take your medication and reflect on why
| you're the only one with whom this exchange has deteriorated to this
| level.

  Why are you so intent upon telling the whole world that your worst
  nightmare would be to have to take medication to control your mental
  illness?  I think your ability to count has suffered tremendously, too.
  There are two people in this exchange.  A psychosis is the inability to
  distinguish reality from purely mental constructions, one such obvious
  case being the inability to see oneself as part of the problem, but you
  share that with almost every rabid idiot who gets into flamewars on
  USENET.  There is nothing unique with me -- your behavior would get you
  into serious trouble wherever anyone cares about truth and honesty and so
  crack down on propagandizing lying idiots.  You see, you have in fact
  been posting a lot of false accusations against Debian based on your
  vague memories and long past painful experiences whose substance you have
  now forgotten.  Psychosis is a pretty good name for living in a world
  where emotions shape your _perception_ of reality to the point where you
  can no longer deal with the facts, can no longer _remember_ the facts
  that shaped your emotions, and refuse to update your emotions when you
  must have seen that the facts have changed.  I am a little surprised that
  you tell us, by way of choosing your insults to unintelligently, that you
  are very, very afraid of the stigma of psychosis.  Why this fear?  Anyone
  who has figured out what people base their insults on knows that they
  tell an interesting story about the person who does the insulting, and
  has absolutely no relevance for the person insulted if this is known.
  Unless, of course, the insult is based in fact, but the only facts we
  have on USENET are what people choose to post.  Some people tend to
  forget that and start to presume things about other people based on what
  _they_ think someone they can barely see through their emotional rage
  must be like -- but that is just a mirror image of their own dark side.

  It is fascinating to watch people drag in completely insane and out-of-
  context things to try to insult other people and the only effect they
  achieve is to tell everybody else what _they_ have a problem with.  One
  would have thought that people recognized this, but I believe people who
  blow up this way have never been challenged intellectually and actually
  believe thay are smart and in control of their lives, neither of which
  are true, and when they realize that they are not, react violently.

| To the rest of the group: my apologies for this flamewar, I did try to
| take it email, but...

  Intelligent people do not take flamewars to e-mail.  Only rabit idiots
  keep flaming people in private communication.  You have proven that you
  have _no_ desire to stop the flaming, so the halo you appear to don now
  is a particularly egregious case of, in your words, "a transparent excuse
  if there were ever one".  Again, thank you for supplying us with more
  details on your own modus operandi when your brain has snapped.

  The only solution to your problem, however, is to provide _evidence_ of
  the alleged problems you had with Debian's package system, which you have
  so far refused to offer, admit that you were mistaken if you cannot find
  such evidence, and retract your negative propaganda against Debian as
  outdated and irrelevant.  Since this seems to be impossible for you, you
  destroy your credibility with every message you post that does _not_
  contain such evidence.  And since I keep telling you this and you have a
  serious authority problem, you will not abide by this request at _any_
  cost, either.  I also find this particular part of the stupid behavior of
  net.idiots quite amusing: It would blow any criticism of their stupid
  behavior out of the water if they could swallow their pride, so the only
  thing under _real_ attack is that pride.  Imagine having tied your pride
  to being _wrong_!  It really is quite hilarious.

  Now, let us see if a pathetic knee-jerk response is the best you can do.

  If you send me a message, I can do whatever I want with it until I agree
  to some particular terms, such as by replying privately to it, in which
  case I have _agreed_ to make the exchange private.  You may not have
  noticed, but I made no such agreement with you at all, and certainly no
  promise or claim that I would not post it.  That you think this has
  anything at all to do with dishonesty betrays an utter failure to grasp
  what honesty is and applies to, which is hardly surprising, considering
  how you attempt to insult people by making up one thing more idiotic than
  the next instead of at least _trying_ to hit the target.  Sheesh!

  As for _your_ intentions, you simply failed to communicate them.  Lots of
  people send mail when they wanted to post and some even the reverse -- it
  is a common mistake and smart people know this.  It is therefore a very
  good idea to label messages _intended_ to be private as such, but you did
  not do that, did you?  I repeat, and I mean it: the message was obviously
  intended for public consumption, by the very nature of the contents
  (private flames are _so_ idiotic that a sender _must_ be presumed to have
  made a mistake lest be presumed completely braindead), by continuing a
  public flame (no difference from anything you _have_ posted), by _not_
  being labeled private, and by coming from a person very likely to be
  careless enough to make such a mistake and stupid enough not to admit it,
  but instead attempt to take advantage of it, which you also have done,
  which is really quite amazing.

  _If_ I had replied to you in private and _if_ I had agreed to keep it
  personal, I would have lied about it being intended for public view.  The
  problem here is that you failed to understand which options you had and
  chose among -- I fault you most of all for not exercising _any_ of the
  smart options, but going _only_ for the really retarded ones.

  Incidentally, have you noticed anything in the news lately about how
  unwelcome personal mail is handled?  So far, the sender of these letters
  has at least been smart enough to refrain from jumping up and accusing
  the news media of publishing them.

| I always thought that the conventional advice in a flamewar was for the
| concerned parties to take it to email.

  It means "take it outside", you doofus, an attempt at being polite when
  really yelling "GO AWAY!", but polite does not work with some people --
  they have to be yelled at to grasp the slightest little thing, and most
  of them do not even get it after _several_ attempts, like you.  It is not
  a recommendation to be taken literally.  Geez, some people!

  Why would anyone want to send, much less receive, flames by mail?  Flames
  received by mail can be used for only one thing: public posting, like on
  web pages or in newsgroups.  Otherwise, trash them, like spam, and forget
  them.  If they actually hurt, public posting is the only option, because
  the person behind it needs to be exposed and punished, and one cannot do
  that in mail.  Just look at you, you do not even grasp that you have done
  something wrong in this thread even though the whole world is watching
  you self-destruct while you deny it.  If you can sit there and continue
  to behave as if you were right in all your whining about Debian, imagine
  what _lack_ of public exposure does to a drooling idiot's conviction that
  he is in the right and everybody else is in the wrong!

  Sending abusive messages by mail requires that the sender believes he has
  the right to _dictate_ what the recipient should feel able to do with the
  message -- indicating that abusive mail is also a power game -- such as
  respecting the sender's privacy while the sender disrespects and violates
  the private space of the recipient.  This is quite rich!  You would have
  to be really stupid and unprincipled and generally a bad person to think
  you could get away with this, much worse if you think it is a good idea
  and gives you any right to complain about what heppens to you afterwards.
  Again, some people!  Face it: Once you send a message on the Internet, it
  is out of your control.  It is even true for good old paper-based mail.

  The only thing you can do is to try to make sure people who receive your
  private messages actually _do_ feel bound by a sense of privacy in the
  communication, and that means being _nice_ in private communication.  Why
  does this take more brainpower than some people have at their command to
  figure out?  Don't they _ever_ think?

| I certainly do not wish to stop the flaming

  I'm glad to see that you can admit _something_.

  *laugh*  After what you have been doing here -- just look at yourself! --
  you still think you have the right to complain about _anything_ relating
  to etiquette and politeness!  This is just too damn funny.

| I'll happily admit to not being intimidated by a thug.

  It is really quite amusing to see how simple-minded the fantasy world is
  that you have to make up so you can relate to what you do not understand
  And it is quite appropriate that you resort to "thug" -- you do seem like
  a person who is unable to deal with other people with mind and language,
  and the imagery you prefer is one where muscles are the only source of
  strength and power.  So I can only assume that this is true for you.  In
  _my_ simple world, people who think muscles are a source of strength and
  power are recyclable trash.  But you are welcome to your fantasy world,
  as it explains so much of your amazingly unintelligent behavior when you
  have simply been requested to cough up the _evidence_ to support your
  negative bullshit about Debian, which you refuse to do, for the obvious
  reason: You have been fully aware that your tarnishing Debian has been a
  dishonest ploy from the get-go, and now you pretend to be upset that your
  insulting personal mail got posted with a tongue-in-cheek comment that
  only you have a transparent excuse for a problem with.  I wonder how
  people like you manage to survive -- some _thugs_ should have eliminted
  you long ago if you had managed to behave as stupidly in real life.

  So you have snapped for good.  It had to happen.  Enjoy your personal reality.