Is David W Fenton a Troll?

Posted by Christian on Oct 25, 2009 in Development, Stackoverflow | 0 comments

Seth Godin recently had a post on Trolls that struck a chord.

I recently had an annoying experience on Stackoverflow.  Specifically, it was in regard to an Access Question.

I won’t bore you with the details.  The short version is that a Mr. David W. Fenton has some very strong feelings as to what a Competent Developer should or should not do.

I can respect his passion for his job, but I have little time for someone so one eyed.  I’ll save my response for another day.  Let’s just say that his definition of “user friendly”, “mission critical”, “application off line” is WAY different to mine.

He down voted my answer, which surprised me to say the least.

So is David W Fenton a troll?  Based on Seth’s observations:

1. trolls will always be trolling

At the time of writing, his Stackoverflow profile says that he has down voted a surprising 266 times (with only 203 up votes)

2. critics rarely create

He has asked 0 questions and it seems his greatest claim to fame is several MS Access 2003 “applications” (Access 2003???)  If David is creating, I don’t know what it is…

3. they live in a tiny echo chamber, ignored by everyone except the trolled and the other trolls

I couldn’t see a blog on his website or much more information.  His twitter stream is just a mindless rant of fart jokes and Irritable Bowel Syndrome comments

4. professionals (that’s you) get paid to ignore them. It’s part of your job.

Well Seth, that is the hardest one!

Rock on!

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