[Iggy]

The irony that I found this thread...not only because I'm new here, but I joined the DevHardware forums in October, and several people there seem to be hot heads. I joined because my bf was a member on there and I wanted to learn more about computers so I wouldn't feel "out of the loop" when he gets to talking with his friends or tries to explain something to me, etc. Since the computer class I'm in at school didn't fit the course drescriptin and I'm stuck in a stupid basics class, I've stayed out of the main forums for now until I can read things in there and post something somewhat useful. In the general section alone, I have seen (and often been the target of) a lot of bashing/flaming by members who have the theory that just because they are better at what they do than the other members (especially n00bs such as me) they can basically treat people like dirt and give neg rep, flame them, etc. There has been a thread where something was brought up in the Spam section that everyone was talking about, and then suddenly there's a post about how the topic was brought up over 5 months ago, and this resulted in an all out flame war about bringing up old topics and our claim that it shouldn't matter since it was so long ago and it was the spam section anyway. Another thread resulted in a flame war because of a post that was made that ended up asking a question answered earlier in the thread. And that's just the tip of the iceberg...

Really, I agree. If you can't use constructive criticism and be polite in telling someone they made a mistake, then you're going to scare away the newbie, and make yourself look like a jerk. Sure, if someone shows that they just don't care and does stupid things repeatedly, then you need to be tougher on them. But there's no need to insult a person for a simple mistake when they had really meant well.