why reply if you are going to be mean?

[leggy]

Seen this many times, but first time it happened to me. I asked a question here because i was looking for personal experience about a location. Instead of helpful info, i get "call the place", really, wow hadn't thought of that. Or get ridiculed by someone thinking i am being cheap and not wanting to spend money to park my 100k combination rig. I was already planning on paying to park at an event venue.
I have sen this many times with other poposters, people respond with unhelpful and downright condescending comments. My experience says these people are building there egos up by making derogatory comments that are intended to belittle the OP! If you have nothing relevant to the posts, don't reply and keep your digital muscles unflexed. These type of people would never speak face to face this way, gutless!

[John_Joey]

leggy wrote:
..snip.. My experience says these people are building there egos up by making derogatory comments that are intended to belittle the OP!!

My opinion is they have very little self respect going on in their work life and/or home life. They are lashing out in a destructive manner while hiding behind the internet attempting to make themselves feel better.

I sure wouldn't let it get to you.

[rwbradley]

x2
I have found this particular forum to have a higher incidence of what you described vs many others that I have been part of. With that said, there is still good content in this forum and I would not write it off completely. A couple of things to consider (my personal opinion). As for the pointless posts, I suspect it is simply people trying to get filler posts to get full member of senior member status. If you look at the post history you will likely see a trend in high quality or low quality posts for specific members. As for the toxic posts, they will happen, let them have their right to free speech and pass over their own comments like they were not even there, no need to feed the animals. And one sure fire way to bring out the animals is to start a controversial post about towing weight, ST vs LT tires, and diesel vs gas. These topics will bring out the animals in droves and will have virtually not comments by actual experts. If you want some amusing reading, about a month ago someone who is a true expert in tires started a thread about tires. It appeared to be an honest discussion about tires and of course the animals and self appointed experts came out to feed, but he handled it quite well.

[TomHaycraft]

I see it happening on other discussion boards that I follow. It is "an Internet" thing. The anonymity of communicating electronically (rather than face to face) seems to allow some people to forget their manners. I'll bet you'd get a different answer from some if asked face to face. Others? There will be others who will be a jerk no matter what. Let those comments roll off, life's too short to expend energy on those.

[amandasgramma]

There's one in every group. No excuses for them....but they seem to try to show their superiority. Every time I read those kinds of answers I say to myself "wow, sure glad I'm not married to you". I wonder if they don't realize it. In that case, EVERYONE needs to stop and think before answering.

[Dr_Jay]

I agree.