Regardless of whether or not credential requirements are founded, those are some pretty dickhead email responses. Why cuss at someone asking a genuine question?
Internet tough guys are so cool.
Internet tough guys are so cool.
EDIT: The student was also in the wrong; he was being presumptuous. The best way to deal with these people is just move on.
I'd like to think he gets a large amount of emails a day and the fact that this person wanted credentials but decided to email rather than research further could have hit a nerve.
Just look so far as the final response shown:
> I think that you shouldn't write articles under the mindset that you know what you're talking about...
> Hello, I'm citing your work for a debate article I'm using > about space colonization and how it is improbable. I do > need credentials however, and I've yet to find them online. > If you could reply with your credentials that'd be great.
No harm in that email, very simple.
But then the blogger went on to whip out his e-peen and tell the kid to go to his wikipedia rather than just write "I'm a self taught novelist who thoroughly researches his topics he writes about but doesn't have credentials in the traditional sense".
EDIT: I apparently have no idea how to do quotes on HN despite my valiant attempt to do so. I apologize.
Using two spaces indentation can work
Furthermore, perhaps this is culturally dependent, but nothing about those questions strikes me as genuine.
Quite frankly, I wouldn't have posted this email exchange on my own blog if it was me because I feel it would portray me in a negative light. To each his own I suppose.