[Usenet; originally and more formally, net.kook] Term used to describe a regular
poster who continually posts messages with no apparent grounding in
reality. Different from a troll, which implies a
sort of sly wink on the part of a poster who knows better, kooks really
believe what they write, to the extent that they believe anything.
The kook trademark is paranoia and grandiosity. Kooks will often
build up elaborate imaginary support structures, fake corporations and the
like, and continue to act as if those things are real even after their
falsity has been documented in public.
While they may appear harmless, and are usually filtered out by the
other regular participants in a newsgroup of mailing list, they can still
cause problems because the necessity for these measures is not immediately
apparent to newcomers; there are several instances on record, for example,
of journalists writing stories with quotes from kooks who caught them
unaware.
An entertaining web page chronicling the activities of many notable
kooks can be found at http://www.crank.net/usenet.html.
