I've been a member here MacRumors for sometime and I've noticed a general decline in forum decency. I guess it blends well with the overall decline of decency on social media and in politics. My issue is that if someone creates a post that you disagree with, it takes longer to craft a mean-spirited response than to just back out and move along. If you disagree with something someone posts, just let it go.
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Lack of Forum Decency
- Thread starter rockitdog
- Start date
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I think in general when it comes to the nature of discussion, arguments will happen, but if it crosses the line where it becomes off-topic heated vitriol where the topic of discussion is no longer progressing, then use the report function (And ignore feature of *that* specific member) and allow the moderators to assess the concern.
We have to keep in mind that some folks lack the capacity to let things go. A good thing to keep in mind when dealing with others is that we are not required to attend every argument to which we are invited. Once we learn that a person's value is not based on the opinions of others, the easier it is to let things go.
(Obligatory xkcd - https://xkcd.com/386/)
There's an important difference between persisting in an argument until everybody else has got bored and wandered off (nobody has to read the whole thread), and having an argument descend into an ad-hom slanging match that is liable to cause offence (which is what, I think, the thread starter was worrying about).
That also gives a more objective basis for moderators to step in when the personal insults start, rather than having to adjudicate on when an otherwise civil argument is won or lost.
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As someone who has been here almost since the beginning, the problems started around the time the iPod was announced. But the bigger influx of arguments happened once the iPhone became a huge deal and the influx of "new Apple users" appeared. The fights would be over the people who stuck with the company during it's near death and the new people who only knew Apple as being the iPhone company. At that time the member numbers went from around 100,000 to well over 10 times that practically overnight. Long gone was the small Apple community fighting over the desk lamp iMac.
Decency has been thrown out the window years ago. Heck, you can even tell that some people don't have any decency by just looking at their profile picture and the is especially evident in the PRSI forum.
