Why is NoSpamMan banned? For arguing like he has been in this thread? That would be ridiculous, because he clearly is not trolling, but raising questions and accusations that are a very natural outgrowth of this unusual product launch. He has not been screamingly unreasonable or sinister like many trollish posters we've had who go on for months or are still actively subverting the thread.
Back to your analogy, because that is the response that we might have worked on with NoSpam. Apple's situation is more like the home team who was refurbishing the stadium and didn't get all the new redesigned seats in from China by opening game. Production SNAFUs, seats were too hard to manufacture, etc., so they sold out tickets too quickly, but they can't talk about why without losing unthinkable amounts of credibility. Better to take the limited fan outrage. And so on.
Actually, i'm pretty outraged that NoSpam was banned, even though I didn't agree with his argument.
Edit: I see there's a blank space in his recent post history in this thread. Maybe that was it. Did anyone see it?
You've got some good points -- I hadn't thought of using colors ...
I was fooling around a bit and here's the In-N-Out app with fewer rows displayed -- but larger, bolder type and larger targets for the finger:
I have to go now, but I'll play around with colors tomorrow ...
What color do you want your fries
If you could use Force Touch with a swipe, you could drill down your 3D burger to the ingredient you are interested in, and make a swipe left and another Force Touch to add/subtract that ingredient. You could have a starting template of a Double Double, or just individual ingredients.
A Force Touch and a swipe right would allow you to drag and drop an ingredient to re-sequence your ingredient stack. Might make a nice promotional "game" not to mention allowing customization of meals.
For a trimetric model, it would be possible to have three, or more swipes directions for each Force Touch configuration.
3) it's better in the long run to under rather than over estimate.
Let's say Apple were over cocky about a release and they pre-built 10M and sold to channel. However (for this thought experiment) only 5M sold to customers. Let's say that 5M a quarter is what they are going to sell from then on in.
At their conference call they would announce 10M sales in the first Q after release and 0 sales in the second Q. *
Now imagine same scenario with 2M available for launch. They will sell out so Apple starts building more units until it is in supply demand equilibrium. That probably won't happen in the 1Q but will sometime , probably in the second. Sales to channel will be something like 4M in Q1 and 6M in Q2. Reaching equilibrium *
In both cases Apple will sell 10M units to customers. In the first case they get bad press ( sales collapse). In case 2 it looks like sales are increasing Q over Q even though final customer demand is 5M in both quarters.
Not quite: they may not sell 10M total in your second scenario because people who cannot easily get one may get turned off and never come back to buy.
Pissing off your customers just to play accounting/media games isn't always a great idea.
I mean: I'm a pretty huge Apple fan.... But even I am not happy that I stayed up until 3AM and still didn't get one on launch day...
Preordering started at 3:00 AM on the East Coast of the U.S. I don't know anyone who is normally up at that hour, or who could afford to stay up that late, assuming they work the next day. Staying up to midnight here on the West Coast was difficult enough.
You can always wake up for 10 minutes at 3 am, that's not that different of waking to take a pee in the middle of the night..
And anyway that's a choice, to take 10-20 mins from your sleep to do something.
I was working at the launch time, I did not had any choice but to wait for the end.
Apple conferences and other us events are always in the middle of the night from here, if you want to see some you need to sacrifice some sleep sometimes, like I sacrificed 5 minutes of sleep this morning to see the falcon 9 not launch, and I'll do the same for 10-20 minutes tomorrow morning to luckily see it launch.
You can always wake up for 10 minutes at 3 am, that's not that different of waking to take a pee in the middle of the night..
And anyway that's a choice, to take 10-20 mins from your sleep to do something.
I was working at the launch time, I did not had any choice but to wait for the end.
Apple conferences and other us events are always in the middle of the night from here, if you want to see some you need to sacrifice some sleep sometimes, like I sacrificed 5 minutes of sleep this morning to see the falcon 9 not launch, and I'll do the same for 10-20 minutes tomorrow morning to luckily see it launch.
You can always take two minutes from work to look at your phone, unless you work in a prison laundry or something. Getting up in the middle of the night to do the same and then going back to sleep is not a simple matter for everyone. But as I said, nobody in Australia, Asia or Europe is going to thank Apple for allowing them to preorder during waking hours. One way or another, Apple always screws it up.
You can always take two minutes from work to look at your phone, unless you work in a prison laundry or something. Getting up in the middle of the night to do the same and then going back to sleep is not a simple matter for everyone. But as I said, nobody in Australia, Asia or Europe is going to thank Apple for allowing them to preorder during waking hours. One way or another, Apple always screws it up.
There are a lot of situations where you cannot : meeting, in the middle of an attention demanding process, in a place where you do not have access to the web, people working in restaurants and shops that have to deal with clients, etc, etc...
Andrew over at MR posted that Apple has acknowledged to him some rethinking of the launch and whether or not to offer stock in the stores on 4/24 --
[QUOTE]He mentioned that due to these points made, discussion surrounding in-store stock on launch day, as well as the marketing advertising the 04.24.15 date are being considered with "great concern".
I was also told (what I assumed) it wasn't out of the question that course could change again, nothing is final from now until the 24th. It may very well be available in stores then.
Further more, and perhaps most interesting, he said that June preorders will most likely ship sooner than June. Of course he didn't make any promises, but that's the reason Apple is announcing such an extended ship date after all - to avoid disappointment through false guarantees.
Lastly, he mentioned that Apple still cares deeply about the launch experience, saying that lines aren't exactly a thing of the past like it's been implied. They just hope to improve "how" we wait in line (eg. new reservation system), eliminating a large number of the negatives associated with it. We know that many still like that experience.[/QUOTE]
Perhaps if you don't mind having the camera always pointing slightly upward. I would generally prefer a shot of people being framed at eye level or slightly above, not looking up their noses. An iPhone 6 cannot be propped up exactly level without considerable effort using both a back and front restraints to keep it from falling over. That said, a rounded edge with back and front support might be slightly easier to aim the camera both downward or upward at slight angles.
sure you can, quite easily -- you just arent being very creative in problem solving. i just did it on my desk in about 3 seconds. if i had a group of people standing 10 feet away youd never notice anything unusual whatsoever.
You have two non-exclusive choices to improve your situation:
1.) Contact Apple directly.
2.) Stop buying from Apple.
The following actions will not solve any of your problems:
1.) Posting rants on Internet forums
2.) Making sweeping overgeneralizations about Apple
3.) Trying to win over people by claiming you're an "Apple guy"
4.) Arguing with people who don't agree with your point of view
Yes, I know you're banned at the moment, but feel free to respond when the ban is lifted.
I would like to understand what drove you to start ranting here. What did you hope to accomplish? I can't see anything to be gained by that. Suppose everyone agreed with you. Would your situation change? Would "Tim-o" do his job according to your standards?
I personally think you're just looking for people to agree with you. Maybe you're super frustrated with Apple. Maybe you need for strangers to validate your point of view (good luck with that). I suppose you could tow the line about "having a discussion" but coming to these forums with your attitude, and frankly, the personal comtempt you seem to have towards complete strangers is no way to have a discussion. It's unhealthy, unproductive, and ultimately self-defeating.
Hi Guys,
Apparently the powers that be have reinstated my ability to converse on this topic, but I have to say that I'm completely stunned that I was banned from participating in a spirited and extremely civil discourse. The topic at hand is completely moot at this stage, but if my suggestion that someone is an "apologist" qualifies as as "Ad Hominem" attack, well I just don't know what to say.
Someone who runs this board is operating with a completely different dictionary.
I'm a writer and have written for Mac publications and on boards and BBSes (remember those?) since 1989 and I have never, ever even been scolded for the tone of my discourse, much less "banned." In fact, just the opposite. My personal/professional philosophy is to never attack the person, but rather the argument.
At the risk of being banned again (because if AppleInsider doesn't tolerate criticism of Apple, I'm guessing they don't deal well with feedback either), I will suggest that there is a problem here if the way in which I argued my point of view here caused any kind of infraction.
We are critical, dialectic, thinking, reasoning human beings. If you ban other points of view because you don't agree with them, that's censorship plain and simple.
I will not likely return to these boards to venture an opinion if we're only allow pro-Apple points of views. That's just immature, shallow and ridiculous. And yes, it smacks of cultish behavior.
if my suggestion that someone is an "apologist" qualifies as as "Ad Hominem" attack, well I just don't know what to say.
Someone who runs this board is operating with a completely different dictionary.
it smacks of cultish behavior.
How can you say that you're attacking the person's argument when you just stated you attacked the poster right there? An ad hom is saying that "someone is [insert insult]", which has nothing to do with what they're saying, you're attacking their character. You're also insulting every member of the forum when you describe it as a cult. You made multiple posts alluding to the idea that people here are brainwashed, unintelligent, cultish simply because they are defending Apple and you aren't, which is offensive. If you want to counter people's arguments then do it without the offensive rhetoric attached.
How can you say that you're attacking the person's argument when you just stated you attacked the poster right there? An ad hom is saying that "someone is [insert insult]", which has nothing to do with what they're saying, you're attacking their character. You're also insulting every member of the forum when you describe it as a cult. You made multiple posts alluding to the idea that people here are brainwashed, unintelligent, cultish simply because they are defending Apple and you aren't, which is offensive. If you want to counter people's arguments then do it without the offensive rhetoric attached.
Hi Marvin,
It's interesting that you have generalized my statements to include "every member" of the forum, when they did not. I was speaking of a trend, a tendency. There's a website (which I like) called CultofMac, so it's out there. We joke about it and there's a ring of truth to how WE (notice the first person plural in use again here) attach to this technology company.
Again, I was discussing a tendency for Apple fans (of which I include myself) to ignore anything critical about Apple as if it was something more than just loving their Toyota, or their Samsung TV. I never accused any specific person of being "unintelligent," but I would definitely say "thin skinned," if this is what my words bring up.
And again, this is in reference to their BELIEFS, or their opinions, not their character.
Calling someone an apologist is not a character insult. It refers to their bias, what and how they are defending something they believe in.
Additionally, I spoke at length about different poster's arguments as well, but I suppose that was not as triggering as suggesting that there is a love of all things Apple that seems to interfere with objectivity on the part of some.
Now, do those statements sound as though I'm attacking character?
Well, I didn't think of that. Still, he just seemed cranky, not Frost-y.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Flaneur
Well, not quite analogous. But wait a second.
Why is NoSpamMan banned? For arguing like he has been in this thread? That would be ridiculous, because he clearly is not trolling, but raising questions and accusations that are a very natural outgrowth of this unusual product launch. He has not been screamingly unreasonable or sinister like many trollish posters we've had who go on for months or are still actively subverting the thread.
Back to your analogy, because that is the response that we might have worked on with NoSpam. Apple's situation is more like the home team who was refurbishing the stadium and didn't get all the new redesigned seats in from China by opening game. Production SNAFUs, seats were too hard to manufacture, etc., so they sold out tickets too quickly, but they can't talk about why without losing unthinkable amounts of credibility. Better to take the limited fan outrage. And so on.
Actually, i'm pretty outraged that NoSpam was banned, even though I didn't agree with his argument.
Edit: I see there's a blank space in his recent post history in this thread. Maybe that was it. Did anyone see it?
Hi Flaneur,
Just wanted to say that I appreciated your vote of confidence here. I felt that I was arguing as eloquently as I knew how and was really stunned that this got me "banned." I hope that a lot more people would be very disturbed by my speech being restricted and then subsequently removed along with my ability to say something about it. I wrote directly to the admins to inquire and protest and they never replied.
As I mentioned in my earlier post today, I've been writing on boards for 25 years and this is the first one that ever banned me for what I felt was fairly civil discourse. And it's fine that people might disagree with my take on Apple this time. I just wanted to have an objective discussion about it and it felt like no one was holding Apple responsible for anything. Anyway, that's where the religion and cult teasing came in.
As for being "cranky," guilty as charged and I don't believe that to be an Ad Hominem attack. ;-)
I have no idea who the people are here underneath their nom de plume, but when you've been an independent Mac professional for as long as I have 20+ years, you do get a bit cranky. It comes with the territory. I've never known any Apple Authorized dealer who waxes poetic about their love for all things Apple because we get to see the dark side of Apple. And there is a dark, ruthless side to Apple. That will probably get me banned again for saying so, but I really doubt that there are any full time professionals out their who own their own Mac/Apple business who have not seen that.
Anyway, thank you for noting that the severity of the procedure did not seem to fit the tone of my discourse.
Now, do those statements sound as though I'm attacking character?
The following statements have nothing to do with any arguments people made:
I was one of the vocal people telling the minions to hang on and keep believing,
Apple doesn't need (or deserve) apologists anymore.
I'm in the choir, in the family, and we should be able to speak honestly here and not be branded as heretics.
Ease off the Kool Aid.
Actions speak louder than holy words.
No one is "crying." When Apple fans (or even just "customers") legitimately complain about a problem, it's not like we've insulted your religion or therapist.
When we call them on it, we're not children "crying," we're intelligent, un-brainwashed adults with critical faculties.
This is what we teach in Kindergarten.
I stopped drinking the Kool Aid many years ago
I'm just getting really tired of the religious worship aspect that still permeates the space. I don't know if there is any other corporation in the world that has this kind of devotion and it's kind of creepy sometimes. I guess the operative question here (among the devotees) is along the lines of, "Is there ANYthing that Apple could do wrong that would generate a legitimate complaint?"
If the answer to that question is "no," then basically we have a cult.
If you want to be an apologist, at least own it. Or explain why you're not an apologist or superfan who sees no flaws, by speaking objectively about the issues.
Your persistent defense of all things Apple begins to sound as though your relationship to them is faith based. Me? I'm a realist
Every now and again people pop up who claim to be more rational than everyone else and start throwing around insults like these, speaking down to everyone. The offensiveness has nothing to do with you opposing Apple. It's making out that everyone is somehow deluded and you're here to tell everyone the truth, which is usually some baseless statement that is never addressed in favor of telling everyone how deluded they are if they don't feel the same way. There are members here who are far more critical of Apple but manage to share their opinions politely.
The following statements have nothing to do with any arguments people made:
Every now and again people pop up who claim to be more rational than everyone else and start throwing around insults like these, speaking down to everyone. The offensiveness has nothing to do with you opposing Apple. It's making out that everyone is somehow deluded and you're here to tell everyone the truth, which is usually some baseless statement that is never addressed in favor of telling everyone how deluded they are if they don't feel the same way. There are members here who are far more critical of Apple but manage to share their opinions politely.
Well, Marvin, I appreciate that you have combed my arguments so thoroughly and pulled out pieces as you saw fit. They're not in context anymore, but it's a reasonable parsing. Thank you for that. As I read them again, I can see how you "might" use them to make me wrong (aka "arrogant," "offensive," etc,...) and not hear the arguments, but I still stand by them.
My "rant," or however you might perceive it, has to do with a lot of frustration in dealing with Apple over the years. Again, those statements, if they don't apply to you, don't apply to you. It's not all or nothing and there should be diversity of opinion here. The majority of them are addressed to trend of behavior, not the specific arguments I was replying to. I think to ignore how the zeal and extremely high enthusiasm for all things Apple biases opinion is problematic. Perhaps you don't. We'll have to agree to disagree.
All of this came about because I felt Apple had been dishonest about a launch date they knew would never happen for (probably) over 99% of those who ordered even in the first few minutes. Different people sprang to Apple's defense and constructed their theories for why Apple was blameless. And that's how we went down this path.
Either way, there is nothing in my statements that is any more terrible than "annoying," or "grumpy." If you are deeply offended by what I've suggested does it not, in perhaps a small way, validate the very point I'm making? That we're acting like we're discussing some deeply held values and/or organization and not a multinational corporation?
To ban someone for a simple counter opinion is kind of scary, when you think about it. I realize that this is not truly a public board, and "free speech" is just a concept, but censorship is still censorship. I would hope others, regardless of what they think of opinions that differ from their own, would feel similarly.
IEither way, there is nothing in my statements that is any more terrible than "annoying," or "grumpy." If you are deeply offended by what I've suggested does it not, in perhaps a small way, validate the very point I'm making? That we're acting like we're discussing some deeply held values and/or organization and not a multinational corporation?
To ban someone for a simple counter opinion is kind of scary, when you think about it. I realize that this is not truly a public board, and "free speech" is just a concept, but censorship is still censorship. I would hope others, regardless of what they think of opinions that differ from their own, would feel similarly.
It's got nothing to do with censorship, it's about civilised discussion. You weren't attacking Apple, you were directing your attacks at members of the forum. As I said already, people are free to share different opinions as long as they expressed politely.
Comments
The offending comment is always deleted.
You've got some good points -- I hadn't thought of using colors ...
I was fooling around a bit and here's the In-N-Out app with fewer rows displayed -- but larger, bolder type and larger targets for the finger:
I have to go now, but I'll play around with colors tomorrow ...
What color do you want your fries
If you could use Force Touch with a swipe, you could drill down your 3D burger to the ingredient you are interested in, and make a swipe left and another Force Touch to add/subtract that ingredient. You could have a starting template of a Double Double, or just individual ingredients.
A Force Touch and a swipe right would allow you to drag and drop an ingredient to re-sequence your ingredient stack. Might make a nice promotional "game" not to mention allowing customization of meals.
For a trimetric model, it would be possible to have three, or more swipes directions for each Force Touch configuration.
This would be a great sandwich configurator.
Copy that, thanks. Too bad, because I thought there was a chance of putting a dent in his armor and ending the joust amicably.
Not quite: they may not sell 10M total in your second scenario because people who cannot easily get one may get turned off and never come back to buy.
Pissing off your customers just to play accounting/media games isn't always a great idea.
I mean: I'm a pretty huge Apple fan.... But even I am not happy that I stayed up until 3AM and still didn't get one on launch day...
Preordering started at 3:00 AM on the East Coast of the U.S. I don't know anyone who is normally up at that hour, or who could afford to stay up that late, assuming they work the next day. Staying up to midnight here on the West Coast was difficult enough.
You can always wake up for 10 minutes at 3 am, that's not that different of waking to take a pee in the middle of the night..
And anyway that's a choice, to take 10-20 mins from your sleep to do something.
I was working at the launch time, I did not had any choice but to wait for the end.
Apple conferences and other us events are always in the middle of the night from here, if you want to see some you need to sacrifice some sleep sometimes, like I sacrificed 5 minutes of sleep this morning to see the falcon 9 not launch, and I'll do the same for 10-20 minutes tomorrow morning to luckily see it launch.
You can always wake up for 10 minutes at 3 am, that's not that different of waking to take a pee in the middle of the night..
And anyway that's a choice, to take 10-20 mins from your sleep to do something.
I was working at the launch time, I did not had any choice but to wait for the end.
Apple conferences and other us events are always in the middle of the night from here, if you want to see some you need to sacrifice some sleep sometimes, like I sacrificed 5 minutes of sleep this morning to see the falcon 9 not launch, and I'll do the same for 10-20 minutes tomorrow morning to luckily see it launch.
You can always take two minutes from work to look at your phone, unless you work in a prison laundry or something. Getting up in the middle of the night to do the same and then going back to sleep is not a simple matter for everyone. But as I said, nobody in Australia, Asia or Europe is going to thank Apple for allowing them to preorder during waking hours. One way or another, Apple always screws it up.
You can always take two minutes from work to look at your phone, unless you work in a prison laundry or something. Getting up in the middle of the night to do the same and then going back to sleep is not a simple matter for everyone. But as I said, nobody in Australia, Asia or Europe is going to thank Apple for allowing them to preorder during waking hours. One way or another, Apple always screws it up.
There are a lot of situations where you cannot : meeting, in the middle of an attention demanding process, in a place where you do not have access to the web, people working in restaurants and shops that have to deal with clients, etc, etc...
Exactly. That's why these ludicrous conspiracy PR theories are bunk.
[QUOTE]He mentioned that due to these points made, discussion surrounding in-store stock on launch day, as well as the marketing advertising the 04.24.15 date are being considered with "great concern".
I was also told (what I assumed) it wasn't out of the question that course could change again, nothing is final from now until the 24th. It may very well be available in stores then.
Further more, and perhaps most interesting, he said that June preorders will most likely ship sooner than June. Of course he didn't make any promises, but that's the reason Apple is announcing such an extended ship date after all - to avoid disappointment through false guarantees.
Lastly, he mentioned that Apple still cares deeply about the launch experience, saying that lines aren't exactly a thing of the past like it's been implied. They just hope to improve "how" we wait in line (eg. new reservation system), eliminating a large number of the negatives associated with it. We know that many still like that experience.[/QUOTE]
sure you can, quite easily -- you just arent being very creative in problem solving. i just did it on my desk in about 3 seconds. if i had a group of people standing 10 feet away youd never notice anything unusual whatsoever.
try harder.
side note -- arent you always dinging the AW for not supporting the surfer's use case? if so, here you go, a surfer's wearable:
http://www.wired.com/2015/04/nixon-ultratide-watch/
...waterproof, long battery life. but it pairs to an iphone, is ugly as hell, does just one thing, and costs $300.
You seem genuinely unhappy with Apple, Inc.
You have two non-exclusive choices to improve your situation:
1.) Contact Apple directly.
2.) Stop buying from Apple.
The following actions will not solve any of your problems:
1.) Posting rants on Internet forums
2.) Making sweeping overgeneralizations about Apple
3.) Trying to win over people by claiming you're an "Apple guy"
4.) Arguing with people who don't agree with your point of view
Yes, I know you're banned at the moment, but feel free to respond when the ban is lifted.
I would like to understand what drove you to start ranting here. What did you hope to accomplish? I can't see anything to be gained by that. Suppose everyone agreed with you. Would your situation change? Would "Tim-o" do his job according to your standards?
I personally think you're just looking for people to agree with you. Maybe you're super frustrated with Apple. Maybe you need for strangers to validate your point of view (good luck with that). I suppose you could tow the line about "having a discussion" but coming to these forums with your attitude, and frankly, the personal comtempt you seem to have towards complete strangers is no way to have a discussion. It's unhealthy, unproductive, and ultimately self-defeating.
Hi Guys,
Apparently the powers that be have reinstated my ability to converse on this topic, but I have to say that I'm completely stunned that I was banned from participating in a spirited and extremely civil discourse. The topic at hand is completely moot at this stage, but if my suggestion that someone is an "apologist" qualifies as as "Ad Hominem" attack, well I just don't know what to say.
Someone who runs this board is operating with a completely different dictionary.
I'm a writer and have written for Mac publications and on boards and BBSes (remember those?) since 1989 and I have never, ever even been scolded for the tone of my discourse, much less "banned." In fact, just the opposite. My personal/professional philosophy is to never attack the person, but rather the argument.
At the risk of being banned again (because if AppleInsider doesn't tolerate criticism of Apple, I'm guessing they don't deal well with feedback either), I will suggest that there is a problem here if the way in which I argued my point of view here caused any kind of infraction.
We are critical, dialectic, thinking, reasoning human beings. If you ban other points of view because you don't agree with them, that's censorship plain and simple.
I will not likely return to these boards to venture an opinion if we're only allow pro-Apple points of views. That's just immature, shallow and ridiculous. And yes, it smacks of cultish behavior.
NoSpamMan, signing off...
How can you say that you're attacking the person's argument when you just stated you attacked the poster right there? An ad hom is saying that "someone is [insert insult]", which has nothing to do with what they're saying, you're attacking their character. You're also insulting every member of the forum when you describe it as a cult. You made multiple posts alluding to the idea that people here are brainwashed, unintelligent, cultish simply because they are defending Apple and you aren't, which is offensive. If you want to counter people's arguments then do it without the offensive rhetoric attached.
How can you say that you're attacking the person's argument when you just stated you attacked the poster right there? An ad hom is saying that "someone is [insert insult]", which has nothing to do with what they're saying, you're attacking their character. You're also insulting every member of the forum when you describe it as a cult. You made multiple posts alluding to the idea that people here are brainwashed, unintelligent, cultish simply because they are defending Apple and you aren't, which is offensive. If you want to counter people's arguments then do it without the offensive rhetoric attached.
Hi Marvin,
It's interesting that you have generalized my statements to include "every member" of the forum, when they did not. I was speaking of a trend, a tendency. There's a website (which I like) called CultofMac, so it's out there. We joke about it and there's a ring of truth to how WE (notice the first person plural in use again here) attach to this technology company.
Again, I was discussing a tendency for Apple fans (of which I include myself) to ignore anything critical about Apple as if it was something more than just loving their Toyota, or their Samsung TV. I never accused any specific person of being "unintelligent," but I would definitely say "thin skinned," if this is what my words bring up.
And again, this is in reference to their BELIEFS, or their opinions, not their character.
Calling someone an apologist is not a character insult. It refers to their bias, what and how they are defending something they believe in.
Additionally, I spoke at length about different poster's arguments as well, but I suppose that was not as triggering as suggesting that there is a love of all things Apple that seems to interfere with objectivity on the part of some.
Now, do those statements sound as though I'm attacking character?
Well, I didn't think of that. Still, he just seemed cranky, not Frost-y.
Well, not quite analogous. But wait a second.
Why is NoSpamMan banned? For arguing like he has been in this thread? That would be ridiculous, because he clearly is not trolling, but raising questions and accusations that are a very natural outgrowth of this unusual product launch. He has not been screamingly unreasonable or sinister like many trollish posters we've had who go on for months or are still actively subverting the thread.
Back to your analogy, because that is the response that we might have worked on with NoSpam. Apple's situation is more like the home team who was refurbishing the stadium and didn't get all the new redesigned seats in from China by opening game. Production SNAFUs, seats were too hard to manufacture, etc., so they sold out tickets too quickly, but they can't talk about why without losing unthinkable amounts of credibility. Better to take the limited fan outrage. And so on.
Actually, i'm pretty outraged that NoSpam was banned, even though I didn't agree with his argument.
Edit: I see there's a blank space in his recent post history in this thread. Maybe that was it. Did anyone see it?
Hi Flaneur,
Just wanted to say that I appreciated your vote of confidence here. I felt that I was arguing as eloquently as I knew how and was really stunned that this got me "banned." I hope that a lot more people would be very disturbed by my speech being restricted and then subsequently removed along with my ability to say something about it. I wrote directly to the admins to inquire and protest and they never replied.
As I mentioned in my earlier post today, I've been writing on boards for 25 years and this is the first one that ever banned me for what I felt was fairly civil discourse. And it's fine that people might disagree with my take on Apple this time. I just wanted to have an objective discussion about it and it felt like no one was holding Apple responsible for anything. Anyway, that's where the religion and cult teasing came in.
As for being "cranky," guilty as charged and I don't believe that to be an Ad Hominem attack. ;-)
I have no idea who the people are here underneath their nom de plume, but when you've been an independent Mac professional for as long as I have 20+ years, you do get a bit cranky. It comes with the territory. I've never known any Apple Authorized dealer who waxes poetic about their love for all things Apple because we get to see the dark side of Apple. And there is a dark, ruthless side to Apple. That will probably get me banned again for saying so, but I really doubt that there are any full time professionals out their who own their own Mac/Apple business who have not seen that.
Anyway, thank you for noting that the severity of the procedure did not seem to fit the tone of my discourse.
The following statements have nothing to do with any arguments people made:
Every now and again people pop up who claim to be more rational than everyone else and start throwing around insults like these, speaking down to everyone. The offensiveness has nothing to do with you opposing Apple. It's making out that everyone is somehow deluded and you're here to tell everyone the truth, which is usually some baseless statement that is never addressed in favor of telling everyone how deluded they are if they don't feel the same way. There are members here who are far more critical of Apple but manage to share their opinions politely.
The following statements have nothing to do with any arguments people made:
Every now and again people pop up who claim to be more rational than everyone else and start throwing around insults like these, speaking down to everyone. The offensiveness has nothing to do with you opposing Apple. It's making out that everyone is somehow deluded and you're here to tell everyone the truth, which is usually some baseless statement that is never addressed in favor of telling everyone how deluded they are if they don't feel the same way. There are members here who are far more critical of Apple but manage to share their opinions politely.
Well, Marvin, I appreciate that you have combed my arguments so thoroughly and pulled out pieces as you saw fit. They're not in context anymore, but it's a reasonable parsing. Thank you for that. As I read them again, I can see how you "might" use them to make me wrong (aka "arrogant," "offensive," etc,...) and not hear the arguments, but I still stand by them.
My "rant," or however you might perceive it, has to do with a lot of frustration in dealing with Apple over the years. Again, those statements, if they don't apply to you, don't apply to you. It's not all or nothing and there should be diversity of opinion here. The majority of them are addressed to trend of behavior, not the specific arguments I was replying to. I think to ignore how the zeal and extremely high enthusiasm for all things Apple biases opinion is problematic. Perhaps you don't. We'll have to agree to disagree.
All of this came about because I felt Apple had been dishonest about a launch date they knew would never happen for (probably) over 99% of those who ordered even in the first few minutes. Different people sprang to Apple's defense and constructed their theories for why Apple was blameless. And that's how we went down this path.
Either way, there is nothing in my statements that is any more terrible than "annoying," or "grumpy." If you are deeply offended by what I've suggested does it not, in perhaps a small way, validate the very point I'm making? That we're acting like we're discussing some deeply held values and/or organization and not a multinational corporation?
To ban someone for a simple counter opinion is kind of scary, when you think about it. I realize that this is not truly a public board, and "free speech" is just a concept, but censorship is still censorship. I would hope others, regardless of what they think of opinions that differ from their own, would feel similarly.
He made a few insulting remarks to who he was replying to and those were removed. It's a temporary ban.
So Marvin, was it you who banned me?...
It's got nothing to do with censorship, it's about civilised discussion. You weren't attacking Apple, you were directing your attacks at members of the forum. As I said already, people are free to share different opinions as long as they expressed politely.