I wish I could identify what it is about the shared writing style at Wired that leads me to rarely finish articles they produce. Still that was an item of interest and glad it was put up here. Even in the bbs days we had a ban list for the FIDO net store and forward network with folks rewrite other folks posts and chainging the id tags so usernames might be changed to something unflattering and then altered posts would get past around the network before someone figuired out the original had been tampered with.

I should probably add that I don't believe there's anything "awesome" about griefing, nor that the people who do it deserve any kinds of props for ruining other people's fun.

However, it remains interesting to observe the motivations and origins of the phenomenon.

that is freaking awesome

"ruining your second life". Yup, that's textbook griefing.

--did I mention, unusually lucid for a Wired article?

Mad props to these pro griefers; it takes a lot of determination to prank the server like they do. It's all in good fun.