I am a saint here and I will throw around all of the childish stunts I feel like!

That said, the purpose of merlyn pulling that stunt is not fundamentally (IMO) childish. People often try to break things because they want to encourage the fixing of what is breakable before it is seriously abused. Also the same exploratory instincts for pushing the limits of a system are what leads people to explore a language and learn it well. The same instinct that leads Randal to try and explore the implementation of the Monastery lead him to learn Perl to the point he could write good documentation and books, and led him to know it so well that he can instantly notice errors in people's code.

In short, what you dislike is actually a manifestation of a constructive tendancy. Which you have personally benefited from.

This does not change my separate opinion that there are things he could do to lessen how many people misunderstand him. But that is not what this post is about. My point in this post is to make it clear that I think you are mistaken, you are being a class A jerk, and that I believe that you accomplished somewhere between zilch and nada/ (Unless you want to count starting some arguments as an "accomplishment". I don't.)

Besides which, if saints cannot pull childish stunts then half the jokes that people like me and tye throw around don't belong here.

There is a marked difference between a normal childish stunt and childish stunt that points out an exploit. Especially one on a node! With it being located in the title of a node, it's highly visible, and opens it right up for someone who has malicious ( not delicious! ) intentions. I didn't have a problem with him putting it up real quick as a joke in the CB, but it really should have been taken down quickly and not left unattended.
People often try to break things because they want to encourage the fixing of what is breakable before it is seriously abused.

That's ridiculous, I believe him when he said he "forgot" about it, but as it stands, he should have made it a point to remember and fix it before others who weren't using their exploratory instincts for good, could cause damage. As it stands, vroom had to go tear it out. Real helpful, much more than say a /msg to vroom. Security through obscurity has it's merits.

My point in this post is to make it clear that I think you are mistaken, you are being a class A jerk,

Hey, I've got no problem with your opinions, and hey, plently of people think I'm a jerk -- even my friends. :)

This thread got out of hand between Randal and I. It started as "Is this useful" and went into what each person though was useful, then it came into his assumption that I put him on a pedestal, which if you knew me, you'd find I don't put people on pedestals ... whether I like them or not.

Macphisto the I.T. Ninja

Everyone has their demons....

Cheers,
KM