Quote:
Originally Posted by
Mr. H 
I have my own opinion but you must remember that not
that long ago, I was just a normal member like you. With great power comes great responsibility and all that...
Good point. It's easy (for me at least) to forget that mods aren't brains in vitrines.
Anyway, let's get down to cases:
iGenius/iLuv/AppleRulez has settled on a fatuous fan boy persona which I guess he imagines serves as an ongoing shaming device to all the real fan boys. Personally, I think anyone who's willing to spend that much time playing at being the kind of person he loathes among those very people should be banned just for being deeply, deeply fucked up, but whatever. The more general point is that he doesn't contribute anything, at all, except this kind of needling "This is how stupid you people are" dreck. I mean, come on. We can all see it for what it is. I'm astonished he's still bothering. Can you imagine? Getting up in the morning and thinking, "Welp, I guess I better go over to AI and post stuff like "Apple is never wrong. You should leave if you think that." It makes me kind of tired and depressed just to imagine it.
And then he's taken to reproaching other posters for being trolls, and for being off topic if they call him out, and, fuck it, just ban him for excessive meta-ness, or something. Really. It should be a pretty cut and dried case.
Now, as to an example of the kind of grey area stuff we've been talking about, let's take AngusYoung (just for example).
Go ahead and scan a list of his posts, I'll wait. OK? So you'll notice he never posts anything but irritable push back against anyone talking up Apple or dissing MS. It almost always is at this kind of implicit "filthy Apple moron you make me sick" pitch, you'll notice, which leads to a very short fuse and a readiness to call people stupid or ignorant or wrong, to characterize what they say as "spew", and just general unpleasantness.
Now, does all of this rise to the level of "troll"? I would say, not exactly, because the poster in question seems less about deliberately inciting anger and more about just genuinely kinda hating Apple and its users. But I'm wondering why a site such as this, ostensibly for
Apple enthusiasts (last time I checked, maybe that characterization is inoperative?), needs to tolerate such people in our midsts.
I think AngusYoung is a good example of a type. Maybe the mods think "Well, we need some people that don't worship at the alter of Jobs" (although I have to say the emphasis on tamping down fan boyism worries me a bit, I mean if fan boys can't high five each other on an Apple enthusiast site, WTF?), but really it's a matter of tone. That poster is one of several who seem bitter about the very idea that Apple people are free to enjoy their devices without being a steady drum beat of abuse, and have appointed themselves as hector-ers in chief to make sure this particular parade gets plenty of rain.
That doesn't counterbalance excessive enthusiasm, it just adds a surly note of pointless argumentativeness. There are plenty of generally satisfied Apple users that are happy to take Apple to task for its perceived blunders without having to tolerate angry, dismissive, sarcastic, belittling, and just generally unpleasant people who seem to have no other agenda than to remind Apple users that they are wrong, deluded, koolaid drinkers, sheep, morons, idiots, babies, can't use real computers, can't think for themselves and don't deserve courtesy or respect on account of their crippling emotional disorder, i.e.
don't hate Apple.
Occasional indulgence in such rhetoric? Whatever. Have literally nothing else to contribute? Ban.
That honestly doesn't seem that controversial to me, this being an Apple site and all, but it does require of the mods taking the time to get an idea of the overall tone of a given member, rather that just looking at a flagged post in isolation.
That'll teach you to ask for input.
