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Is it my imagination, or have we had more sniping in the posts recently?

mac 2005 said:
To me, the issue is: Does a poorly formed question or a question from someone who could have found the answer by reading the FAQs merit a snappy/snotty response? What value does being snarky add? These responses don't answer the question and subject the rest of us to an unpleasant conversation.
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No, it never deserves such a response - just the standard 'try a search to find your answer' used to do, but many people add pointless, snappy or otherwise inappropriate responses. It adds no value, and I agree - I don't want to read someone's post where they start telling another member they're an imbosil/whatever just because they asked something that's been asked before, or been mentioned in the thread already.

mac 2005 said:
As Arn suggested when I created the post I did, the best response is to point the person in the right direction rather than weigh in on what you think about them and the proverbial horse upon which they rode into town. Sometimes rolling your eyes and moving on is the best response.
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Exactly the reason my post average dropped in the last few months ;)

mac 2005 said:
Just because somebody is a "newbie" doesn't give someone else license to s**t on them. And I'm frankly perplexed by people who consider it a point of pride to do just that. None of knows as much about anything as somebody else knows, and I really regret the day they decide to be condescending and not share what they know.
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No it doesn't, and I'm sure that the vast majority of members wouldn't do that either - but again, there's a minority that might spoil it for us all. Newbie flaming is a sport on some forums, and I'm glad it isn't here. The thing to do to try and avoid this happening, in my view, is to ensure the resolution of the following (which I wrote elsewhere but never posted):

The main point is the lack of new/short term members actually (a) reading/comprehending rules, and (b) searching before posting. With the huge influx of new members, there will always be a few slipping the net and not seeing either the rules or the requests to search.


Kingsly said:
Hopefully the killing will stop this evening after six or so. ;)
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Until everyone realises time machine doesn't actually send you through time, or that software update doesn't work because there's no software to update, or that iChat doesn't work if you don't know anyone on AIM... :rolleyes:
 
There's been a lot of sniping lately, no doubt about it.

And as a result, some posters are getting a bit sensitive, thinking that general comments are personal attacks on them.

Let's keep it all civil (feel free if you want to poke fun at me, though).
 
Ish said:
I've just skimmed through 20 pages of New Posts catching up on what has been happening. Does anyone else think the number of posts with bad-tempered remarks is higher now than a few months ago?

Yes I know that posts can be reported, but it's not necessarily at the level indicated in the Forum Rules. Just makes reading the posts less enjoyable. Anyone else noticed anything?
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Actually, this has been going on for the past couple years and seems to be getting worse. Quite frankly, I just got tired of it and now spend the majority of my time on the Political Forum.

When I first drive up here, Apple's stock was trading at < $40 and their installed base was between 2%-3% (as I recall). It is now over $180/share and over 8%. They have been doing a lot of things right. So far, 2007 has been a hige year. All this success has been drawing a great deal of attention. Not all of it is good.

I long ago detected an organized disinformation/propaganda effort underway. I mentioned it several times, but most people accused me of conspiracy theory. However, it was not difficult to see an entrenched pattern developing. It seems like anything :apple: now generates a chorus of negative comments. Those who respond back can quickly have the 'attack dogs' turned on them. Thus the negative posts, personal attacks and bickering, which has totally departed from the thread subject.

Some have accused older posters of attacking newbies. Well, there definitely newbies who come on here and 'stir the pot'. But, there are also many 'oldbies' that were 'newbies' a very short time ago. Basically, I fall into this group, as do many others. They (we) should not be seen as the long-time members here, who seldom ever bust on newcomers.
 
By the way, when I joked about a rotten :apple: I meant the occasional faulty product. (so flame me then!) I wasn't talking about people.

I don't understand the concept of newbie-bashing. It's the sort of thing you found at school when some of the kids in the older classes would look down on the younger ones. I never understood it then either.

Say you have this really nice person, maybe well-respected in another field, who happens to have a penchant for Apple products and decides to join MR. Why should that person then be treated any differently from everyone else? And even if they do read the Forum Rules it's still easy to forget something. Sometimes you can do a search and not find something because the phrasing is different. Maybe they ask again because they want to talk to someone.

I really like the MR forum. There are some wonderful people on MR that have a lot of knowledge and are happy to share it. It's immature (not talking about age here) to come down on someone like a ton of bricks because they don't know something or do something wrong. There's no-one on MR who didn't start as a newbie. I've had it pointed out to me that I've started a thread on something that had been talked about before. No-one was rude about it though. :) Keep MR Happy! :) Looks like a good sig!
 
The Political Forum is a lot like the iPhone forums except the PF has a smarter way to tell you that you suck.:p
 
i noticed that all forums are much less friendly than 2 years ago. it's unbelievable how often people these days call other posters idiot, moron, stupid or worse. i'm really not sensitive to curse words and such, but gee....

when somebody (often newbies) ask questions they are told to do a search. that's ok but do we really need to call them names for not using the search function?

also if posters speculate about products that are admittedtly unlikly to happen do we need to call them names?

and years ago stupid questions were used to make fun of people and then we helped them. now they get insulted (often without getting help).

this used to be a very friendly fun forum. these days it's quite rough and less fun...:(
 
The thread on Al Gore getting the Nobel for his global warming "research" got very heated, about the worst that I have seen in MR. But, as much as I hate to admit it, I really enjoyed reading some of the creative insults and sparring matches that unfolded. Sometimes conflict can be very entertaining and, yes, even educational. The downside is that people may remember the names of posters and hold grudges that will affect how they respond to them in the future. But overall MR is a pretty civil place to hang out.
 
mgguy said:
The thread on Al Gore getting the Nobel for his global warming "research" got very heated, about the worst that I have seen in MR. But, as much as I hate to admit it, I really enjoyed reading some of the creative insults and sparring matches that unfolded. Sometimes conflict can be very entertaining and, yes, even educational. The downside is that people may remember the names of posters and hold grudges that will affect how they respond to them in the future. But overall MR is a pretty civil place to hang out.
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That is nothing new tho in the PRSI, it always gets heated no matter what the subject.
 
I always end up reading the argumentative threads, they draw me in somehow.

But I never do post when I see silly stuff like that, I've hung around here to help out people if I can and just generally learn interesting stuff, not have personal insult matches.
 
it's ok to have that in political threads. emotions run high there anyway and most people expect that. it's sort of normal and if you need help you don't go there anyway.

but it's different when a poster asks "somebody is using my wifi, what can i do?" and the response is "you are an idiot" (i made that example up but there are plenty real ones. just do a search for "idiot" you moron;))

if you think a question is redundant or silly then please come up with a more creative way to insult the poster and add a link to the solution of the problem. if one can not do the latter one then the question was obviously not redundant or silly.
 
The number of members of the forum has grown substantially over the last year or so, as a function of Apple's success. Most of the "problem posters" IMO are new members who don't familiarize themselves with the posting rules. I think it's incumbent on the longer-time members to gently remind the newer members, when the need arises, that this is a moderated forum with rules, and when necessary to report problem posters if they go over the line.
 
andiwm2003 said:
if you think a question is redundant or silly then please come up with a more creative way to insult the poster and add a link to the solution of the problem. if one can not do the latter one then the question was obviously not redundant or silly.
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I like your thinking :D Creativity is always good in every aspect of life!
 
IJ Reilly said:
The number of members of the forum has grown substantially over the last year or so, as a function of Apple's success. Most of the "problem posters" IMO are new members who don't familiarize themselves with the posting rules. I think it's incumbent on the longer-time members to gently remind the newer members, when the need arises, that this is a moderated forum with rules, and when necessary to report problem posters if they go over the line.
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Very well said. I would like to also add that it seems that the tug-of-war between Apple's iPhone firmware updates and the unlockers that sometimes end up with bricked iPhones hasn't helped any. Also, the Leopard update as well as those freezer iMacs has probably added fuel to the fire around here as well.
 
Well after surviving the initial onslaught of the OMG!!@@NOOBWTF?? sort. I think the forums has a higher percentage of younger jailbraking,spoiled kids that want everything for free.
 
It is possible that the economy and the massive job losses that we have been experiencing may have bought a lot of "oppressed anger" over to the internet.

One of the most recent study shows that because the economy, there was a noticable increase of domestic violence across the nation. Mainly because the husbands are now laid off and are at home more than the usual so the violence increased with greater frequency.

My thinking is that it is happening on the Internet as well, it is a depressing time right now around the world.

But language barriers are also an issue such as the physical senses, like seeing the body language as well as hearing the tone. A lot of my comments were mistaken as something else, too many people assuming that I meant something that I actually didn't mean. If they hear me say it in person, they would understand right away. So it is hard.

Look at all the sarcasm posts that often got people confused and anger.
 
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