Oddly, the behavior demonstrated throughout this discourse closely aligns to cyber bullying, and on an email list of professional academics and researchers no less. This is not the solution; this is the problem.
Starting over: Hi Tom, welcome to the list! :-) Tom - what you possibly don't know - there are several people on the list with Aspergers or coming from some other location "on the spectrum" who've been vocal about it. I deal with someone with Aspergers-ish issues *every day*. He's 15, not an internet troll, and having a direct comparison made between internet trolling and what Aspergers is like is just painful to me. Being an 'jerk' or a troll and having Aspergers or other autism-spectrum symptoms are pretty different. :p There are a lot of researchers in the area of disability studies doing interesting work - I'm not really very aware of anyone doing work that crosses disability studies with internet research, but I am going to go ask a friend now if they do know of some - it seems to me that there's a nexus of interest there that someone should be exploring. You're right to point it out, and I want to acknowledge that I see the value in having you point to it, even tho I don't really agree with how you went about it. best, --elijah