You really want to be careful about mixing constructionism and deconstructionism, it’s a bit like matter and anti-matter. But since you started it, there is no reason not to take it a step further and see if it creates a black hole or some sort of exotic particle.

I think your analysis is missing two crucial elements of the subtext.

A)

You must ask, why does User1 begin

user1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?go=Go&search=Snark_(punctuation) >> user2

when, of course

user1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snark_(punctuation) >> user2

is sufficient to convey your inferred meaning of

user1: [oblique reference to derogatory sarcasm] placed-towards user2

Why the seemingly extraneous “Special:Search?go=Go&search=”? It is not a simple copy/paste artifact in the URL, because the first URL resolves to the second URL immediately upon entry. There is clear intent in capturing the unstable moment prior to the resolution of the query (vis-a-vis the eternal uncertainty of meal times), and in any good deconstruction you must “ponder weak and weary” over the author’s true intent, eventually getting to their deep ambivalence about writing their words in the first place and the pointlessness of existence in any event. Clearly the emphasis is not the object of the search, but the act of hunting for it.

2)

Is there a deeper meaning behind the object of this imperative? What is this peculiar punctuation mark, where does it come from and what exactly are it’s feeling towards it’s mother? Is it really more than just a backwards question mark and what is it’s relationship to the inverted question mark of the Spanish typography¿ Is it a foreshadowing of the Spanish Inquisition, no, that cannot be because nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition. No, it is a snark and it is it’s very snark-iness that is of the essence!

Hence the subtext can be read as

user1: User2, Go on a snark hunt!

Snark hunting is well-known to be a dangerous pursuit requiring thimbles, forks, soap, smiles “For the snark’s a peculiar creature that won’t be caught in a commonplace way.” and it should be noted that a snark hunt can go badly awry if the Snark is a Boojum.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hunting_of_the_Snark

It has been said that hackers are sometimes known to refer to bugs in their cherished code as snarks, thus the snark hunting reference, but this seems to be a degenerate form of the more apropos snipe hunting, as the search for the error of their ways is often tedious and futile, like life itself (deep sigh, in French accent).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snipe_hunt

All of this brings in an element of “geek culture” that you heretofore have overlooked, which is we were all pretty much “that kid that read all those books” when we were growing up. This leads to a delight in literary allusion and taking special joy in taunting fellow geeks with those references.

Yours in geekiness, with a dash of snarkiness.

cjl

His de-hacker-ified translation:

user1: hey, look at this wiki page
user2: no, i don’t wanna
user1: YES YOU WILL (wearing some sort of symbol of authority)

He continued: By the way, everyone knows the best tool for piping web content is curl:
curl ‘http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?go=Go&search=Snark_(Punctuation)’
>> >> user2

You need the single quotes too since there’s an ampersand in the URL.
Otherwise wikipedia will get mad at you for not giving any search terms, and
bash will get mad at you for something else… i think it complains that
Punctuation is not a valid command. or maybe it’s just upset that ( is unexpected in the middle of a command like that.

At any rate, seems like it’s almost as tough to read another hacker’s jargon
as code. Maybe we should come up with a more complete commenting system for
IRC than just snarks:

user1:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?go=Go&search=Snark_(Punctuation)
>> >> user2 ## dude you has to look at dis page!
user2: bash: user2: Permission denied ## No wai, jerkface!
user1: sudo
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?go=Go&search=Snark_(Punctuation)
>> >> user1 ## Now what? NOW WHAT?

[which works on a Mac, without an install of links]

This is very interesting and well done. I believe that there is some emerging sociology and communications studies on online communities. You might find some literature analyzing just the kind of exchange you analyze here.

Karin Knorr Cetina is a superb scholar the U of Chicago who has been writing about financial markets. Part of her work was done by observing and analyzing the online exchanges.

Glad to hear you are doing well.

Susan