I also Thank NIW for his helpful attitude and generosity with knowlegeable help.
I read this "Thanks NIW" thread and it caused me to search the thread in question regarding the adjustment-screw and I can see how/where it turned nasty.
I'm the creator and moderator of a discussion Forum similar to this one (but regarding a different type vehicle) and I've been deeply perplexed when I've been attacked by someone whom I'd attempted to assist. It has always surprised me when I discover someone "hates" me ...and all I'd ever believed I'd done to them was to be helpful.
Anyway... reading the other thread does appear that frustration with being misunderstood appears to have manifested itself the sudden appearance of rude wording (likely in the effort to quickly express that frustration.) It doesn't help when words like "stupid" are used to describe one's opinion of another's perceived obtuseness. I believe that's where it turned abusive. Others then "piled on" when they felt their appreciated-guru (the same guy I also appreciate) appeared to have his advice disregarded.
I've been in the
exact same position when I've ticked-off a participant in my-Forum. (In fact, I was trolled on Facebook ...a place I have never even visited...by about a dozen of participants who tried to develop a posse of vigilantes to drum up support to throw me off my own creation. I was informed by one of the other 13K participants who was alarmed by the activity. I was completely unaware of the vehemency of the facebook-vigilantes.) It resulted in serious damage to the discussion/maintenance Forum when another volunteer-moderator took it upon himself to "assuage" the original complainer
by deleting over 4,000 posts of the complainant so the complainer could believe he had erased all evidence of previous participation in our Forum. (The actual result was many of the complainer's erased comments had been quoted in other discussions...with the result of still more damage being done to those other threads because the complainer's comments seemed to have no continuity due to the destroyed original comment/threads. The complainers desire to have all his participation destroyed was in reality defeated due to his quoted comments being included in different participant's postings.... so the volunteer-moderator's (incorrect) belief he was saving the Forum from a threatened lawsuit by those 4K deletions... actually kept the departing-complainer's comments
alive!)
Example:
Participant One: "How do I fix the broken gismo?"
Complainer's Response: "deleted"
Participant One: "HEY! That's Fantastic! Worked Perfectly! Thanks!"
Subsequent Participant: "What was his fix?"
Fourth/More Participants: "Yeah.. thats my problem too! What was the answer?"
No one knows.
Different Thread:
Participant A: "What kind of sealant should I use on my doo-dad?"
Participant B: "The same thing used in the gizmo thread by Complainer."
Participant A: "huh?"
Participant C: "Yeah..that's what I'd like to know."
Partcipants X, Y and Z: "Me too!"
The result...??... The destruction of hundreds of other discussion topics because those conversations now make no sense due to missing posts! Almost ten years worth of valuable information is now lost forever.
All because of one person's rejection of another's knowlegeable answer to his question.
The internet is rife with behavior like this because we all are capable of unconsciously believing we have anonymity when sitting at our keyboards. We all are guilty of writing something in direct response to a person we've never met when we'd
never say the exact same words to their face. To their face, we'd re-word the comment with more genteel language. (Using the word "stuff" instead of "sh*t"... or "silly" instead of "stupid"... in a direct response to someone is a perfect example of how a minor change that does NOT change the actual meaning of the comment can create a huge disaster to the discussion and to permanent feelings toward another.) Let's all try to be nicer to each other, even if we think they're possibly damaging their own equipment.
Yes, THANK YOU, Wolfman! Sincere, appreaciative THANKS.... from someone who has BTDT.... and is still learning
How to Do That.