I was participating in one of the forums that has been drawing me in, the Ubuntu Forums, and came across the post on forum trolls. I breezed through it and was pleasantly surprised to see how balanced a view of this particular type of troll was presented. If you've spent any significant time online as a Christian and been involved in conversations of faith in forums, you have very likely run into these trolls. They are the reason I generally avoid group discussions on spiritual matters. I try to draw that into one-on-one conversation so the conversation can't get hijacked.

The Holy Misroller (HM). Holy Misrollers are those online forum participants who give Christians (or other religious adherents) a bad name. The HM believes himself or herself to be a Christian (etc.) and will generally tell anyone who'll listen about his or her faith in God and in Jesus. At the same time, however, the HM will display decidedly un-Christian behavior, frequently making an *** out of him- or herself. The HM is often characterized by a great deal of anger and hostility. The breed tends to lash out at anyone and anything not in keeping with its incorrectly narrow worldview. The saddest part about HMs is that they do not truly understand Christianity at all.

This sent me into research mode. Who is this Mathew guy who wrote this up? It turns out, besides being a forum admin, he is also a published author and cultural researcher living in Fes, Morocco. I came across a gem of a blog post on a remote moroccan village. His book looks interesting also. Called Humor and Moroccan Culture, it sounded like an interesting read that I might enjoy some day.

Anyway, this is a good example of the fun I have with Linux. The community is really fun to explore. I learn about and interact with people from all over the world who have linux in common.