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Everybody on here is a smartass

O

orestes1984

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Jun 10, 2005
1,000
4
Australia
You logout and leave for a day and I will guarantee you that you will get one smart arsed response or another on a post here and yet if you reply back to it you're generally the one that's sent a warning by a moderator here.

The community here at Macrumors sucks, I don't understand how anyone would put up with this as an active member. I'm obviously not very active, but this place just irks me. It's full of zealots, trolls, and smart arses that just want there two cents worth with their click bait and most of them if provoked will abuse the crap out of the notification center here just to make a point.

I'm pretty much done with this place.
 
orestes1984 said:
You logout and leave for a day and I will guarantee you that you will get one smart arsed response or another on a post here and yet if you reply back to it you're generally the one that's sent a warning by a moderator here.

The community here at Macrumors sucks.
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If you post according to the rules https://macrumors.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/sections/200275117-Forum-Rules, generally you don't get warnings from the mods. I think this is a great community. It is afterall what we make it.
 
Yup, I get it all the time, usually from people who think they're above everyone else. I just ignore them. This is a great and informative forum aside from all that.
 
orestes1984 said:
I don't in the last week I haven't left a thread I've posted in without someone being a smart arse in a quote notification directed towards me where the mods have done practically nothing. This place is over run by obnoxious ****s.
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Everyone is entitled to their opinion. You do realise the mods don't get paid right?
If you feel you have been unfairly treated, contact them and explain. They are approachable.
 
Apple fanboy said:
Everyone is entitled to their opinion. You do realise the mods don't get paid right?
If you feel you have been unfairly treated, contact them and explain. They are approachable.
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It's not that people aren't entitled to their opinions, it's being over zealous and above yourself. I had one particular troll last night that quote harassed me over 4 consecutive threads because I didn't agree the iMac was gods gift to earth :D
 
There's nothing wrong with replying back at someone. But you have to be the bigger person while keeping yourself out of trouble with the forum rules, and then you have to tell yourself that you're not going to bother going in there to reply again even if there are five replies waiting.

Move on and everybody else will, or a mod will make it happen once it gets to the point where the thread is headed off nowhere.

There are some topics worth getting into, the rest of them don't matter. And if less people are contributing their responses to them, the people making them will go away sooner or later.
 
orestes1984 said:
It's not that people aren't entitled to their opinions, it's being over zealous and above yourself. I had one particular troll last night that quote harassed me over 4 consecutive threads because I didn't agree the iMac was gods gift to earth :D
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Trust me, it won't be better anywhere else. As far as overzealous smartass posters go, Macrumors is relatively calm and collected compared to some of the other tech boards out there.
 
orestes1984 said:
It's not that people aren't entitled to their opinions, it's being over zealous and above yourself. I had one particular troll last night that quote harassed me over 4 consecutive threads because I didn't agree the iMac was gods gift to earth :D
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Just ignore or report them. Don't get dragged into an argument on the Internet. You won't win.
 
Apple fanboy said:
Just ignore or report them.
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Best advice right there.

Personally I feel some of them are being deliberately obnoxious in their replies, but craftily staying within forum rules. It's like a sport to them: Their goal is to provoke YOU into saying something you shouldn't. YOU then get an timeout or ban. Pretty nasty.

Don't be their trophy.
 
Renzatic said:
Trust me, it won't be better anywhere else. As far as overzealous smartass posters go, Macrumors is relatively calm and collected compared to some of the other tech boards out there.
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Agreed. While it isn't perfect here, it is way better than son other forums.
 

Actually, I don't think that 'everyone is a smartass' on this forum, far from it. Not only are most tech fora much more - ah, uninhibited - in how opinions are expressed, most news media (even the serious, so-called 'quality', newsprint media) are, too.

On this forum, the places where excessive emotion, arrogance, intolerance and corrosive contempt hold sway tend to be the areas I would consider the 'usual suspects', namely, sub-fora and threads which discuss anything to do with highly popular and technologically advanced Apple products (the iPhone is the obvious example here; I expect the iWatch threads and sub-forum to be home to such ardent creatures in due course as well).

Now, whether this merely amplifies the flaws of the internet in general I do not know and cannot say.

However, a number of explanations for such behaviours suggest themselves: These include the cloak of anonymity afforded by an online existence whereby some individuals believe that normal social conventions concerning etiquette and manners need not apply; the young age of many (above all, the young age and obvious immaturity allied to the strong technological proficiency of many adolescent male) posters on those particular fora; the fact that etiquette has not kept pace with technological advances on the internet and that ways of how to behave in an online environment have yet to be agreed upon; the fact that any remark about a New Apple Product which is less than adulatory may lead to an explosive and incendiary reaction from some of those who have invested a considerable amount of their sense of emerging identity in these products and thus have an emotional investment in these products seeing an attack on (or a debate about) the product as an indirect attack on themselves….

Nevertheless, and notwithstanding what I have written above, I doubt very much if MR can be classed as the sort of place where 'smartasses' are tolerated, let alone welcomed. It strikes me as one of the more civil, civilised, and interesting corners to be found in the online world; for one thing, it is well moderated, and for another, it is usually quite interesting.

However, I do take the precaution - sensible in the circumstances - of giving a very wide berth to the bonkers iPhone (and similar) threads. I have no dog in that fight, and nor do I wish to enter one.

I will say, however, that cults make me very uneasy; and the adulation afforded to the late Mr Jobs is something I have long been uncomfortable with. Some of the excess emotional investment (and consequent reactions) seem to me, to be best explained as expressions of outrage to what are perceived as violations or attacks on an individual's (cherished and carefully crafted) sense of identity, and/or their concomitant membership of an 'imagined community', this one, in this instance, the membership of those who admire the products made by Apple, which has been made public by membership of MR, a forum dedicated and devoted - in its initial incarnation at least - to the discussion of all things Apple.
 
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orestes1984 said:
You logout and leave for a day and I will guarantee you that you will get one smart arsed response or another on a post here and yet if you reply back to it you're generally the one that's sent a warning by a moderator here.

The community here at Macrumors sucks, I don't understand how anyone would put up with this as an active member. I'm obviously not very active, but this place just irks me. It's full of zealots, trolls, and smart arses that just want there two cents worth with their click bait and most of them if provoked will abuse the crap out of the notification center here just to make a point.

I'm pretty much done with this place.
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Maybe it's what you are posting or how you are posting it ? I find the responses helpful and friendly whenever they are given.


Scepticalscribe said:
It strikes me as one of the more civil, civilised, and interesting corners to be found in the online world; for one thing, it is well moderated, and for another, it is usually quite interesting.
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orestes1984 said:
It's not that people aren't entitled to their opinions, it's being over zealous and above yourself. I had one particular troll last night that quote harassed me over 4 consecutive threads because I didn't agree the iMac was gods gift to earth :D
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You can always go into your User CP, add the troll to your ignore list, and avoid seeing any more posts from the troll.
 
I think the mods here are great and fair, but they don't get paid and this place is so busy it's difficult to manage every thread. It relies on us to report trolling and nastiness for any action to be taken.

Unfortunately there is a lot of bickering across threads and it's often a pain sifting through this to find good discussion, however it's about self control and replying sensibly. Sometimes people do need to be put in their place, but do it intelligently and move on. The ignore function is good too, just wish I could work it out on Tapatalk lol. :)
 
I was reading, yesterday, a posting from YNAB (You Need A Budget) about their 'Culture Document' and what they like. It seems apropos for here, and more broadly, everywhere in life. It lines up quite well with my own way of thinking.

You’ll fit right in at YNAB if you like our ever-changing cultural manifesto:
We think it’s important to be helpful and teach one another. You know, lend a helping hand, and look to ease a friend’s burden. When you’re friendly, I guess it means that you take an interest in others, and tend to listen more than you talk. If you (gasp!) change your mind, we think that’s cool, because…well, there’s nothing wrong with changing your mind.

When speaking of others be kind. Is what you’re about to say true, kind, and necessary? We love confidently humble people who are proud of their craft, and stay humble so they don’t stop learning.

You know what makes life great? You assume good intentions, and give others the benefit of the doubt. Even then, you may still disagree—a healthy problem to have between two people that listen, and then listen more. With all of that said, the disciplined and relentless pursuit of important (sometimes scary) things is awesome. And my heavens, if you have a sense of humo(u)r, we want you around (because you’re hilarious).
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Source
 
A little smart-assiness in the forum can make it more interesting. (Not trying to be a smart ass here.)
 
If you're going to debate with people then you've just got to make sure you don't get personal -- that's when you get banned/timed out/given warnings. I think it's a good policy, because when someone resorts to personal insults it simply means that they've run out of valid points and have pretty much lost the argument...
 
noodlemanc said:
If you're going to debate with people then you've just got to make sure you don't get personal -- that's when you get banned/timed out/given warnings. I think it's a good policy, because when someone resorts to personal insults it simply means that they've run out of valid points and have pretty much lost the argument...
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I can agree with that. Though I do think there is one flaw with the moderation system they've got set up here. A flaw the OP of this very thread, and a few stories I've heard from other people have fallen victim to.

I understand that the mods here have to deal with 50 kajillion angry and/or crazy people on a daily, and don't have the time to investigate every little report that pops up in the infraction forum, and, of course, I have no idea what goes on behind the scenes. But I do know enough to see that they tend to fix anything they see as a problem right on the spot. This is a situation where, for lack of a better word, subtle trolls thrive.

We've all seen them. They're those people who rarely ever add anything to a conversation, get people mad, but know how to make people mad through passive aggressive means, and low key jabs that don't stir up any negative mod attention towards them, but over time, end up driving the person on the receiving end batcrap crazy, and they snark off harder than they should. Sometimes, dirty words are used.

...then the guy on the receiving end gets timed out, while the subtle troll gets his little thrill.

Yeah, I know. Self control. You should ignore trolls, subtle or not. And yeah, I guess the guy who snarked off should get punished for it, depending on the severity. But it's a rare thing that both parties involved get timed out, which would be the fair end to that situation.

Of course, I don't know the OP's situation, or why he was timed out. He could've been the full on aggressor for all I know. But it did bring this problem to mind, so I figured I'd talk about it.

And no, I've never been timed out because I snarked off to a subtle troll, though I can think of a couple people who'd fit that description, and have likely tried. Most of my time outs have swung between two deserved its to two misunderstandings that I talked through, and one "wuh" that took me totally by surprise. I'm not talking about myself through a vague friend of a friend of a friend here. :p
 
I’m still convinced we need a post-throttler. So many of the folks described the quote below also post way too many times in the same thread, and get into a pattern of just knee jerk jerkiness :D


Renzatic said:
We've all seen them. They're those people who rarely ever add anything to a conversation, get people mad, but know how to make people mad through passive aggressive means, and low key jabs that don't stir up any negative mod attention towards them, but over time, end up driving the person on the receiving end batcrap crazy, and they snark off harder than they should. Sometimes, dirty words are used.
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Yep. It’s a lot like personal fouls in football: a little something is said, the other guy shoves, he gets the flag :D

I bet if several of us posted actual names, the same 4 or 5 would come up again and again (in fact, one of the usual suspects has already posted several times this morning). They _think_ they’re way smarter than they are, but it’s an easily recognized pattern, and like you indicated, they only thing that saves them is the incredible volume of posts, where moderators don’t have time to spend cycles analyzing and looking for repeated patterns, they just need to fix the issue quickly, and it’s usually the guy that does the shoving :D

I regularly report the passive-aggresive trolls when I see them repeatedly doing this as I think it’s really bad mojo for a message board and is actually in violation of the TOS regarding “trolling”, and I think zinging a few of them would let the masses know this isn’t acceptable behavior [either].
 
orestes1984 said:
You logout and leave for a day and I will guarantee you that you will get one smart arsed response or another on a post here and yet if you reply back to it you're generally the one that's sent a warning by a moderator here.

The community here at Macrumors sucks, I don't understand how anyone would put up with this as an active member. I'm obviously not very active, but this place just irks me. It's full of zealots, trolls, and smart arses that just want there two cents worth with their click bait and most of them if provoked will abuse the crap out of the notification center here just to make a point.

I'm pretty much done with this place.
Click to expand...

Haters gonna hate.
 
People can be snippy, but I find this to be a very civil forum. I tend to see more immaturity in the iOS Device sections.

Remember, sometimes you can mis interpret someone since there are so few communication cues in an internet chatroom than when talking on the phone or face-to-face.
 
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