I just wanted to say that I''ve seen an alarming increase in the number of stupid people on the boards recently... I don''t mean people who don''t know what they''re doing, I mean people who needlessly criticize others about stupid stuff. For example, in that post asking if Visual Basic and Visual C++ are equal (which is a perfectly valid question, IMHO) there were a few posts that said things as intelligent and articulate as "Visual Basic is a shit" and "V I S U A L B A S I C S U C K S C R A P" and stuff like that. Wow. I really wish MORE people would contribute such meaningful knowledge to the forums. I mean, those are the posts you gotta really appreciate, right? ------------------------------ Jonathan Little invader@hushmail.com http://www.crosswinds.net/~uselessknowledge

Yeah, I agree -- it is sort of disturbing. Most of it seems like people are *trying* to start flame wars. But what can you do about it? I think the best course of action is instead of getting into a flame war, ask the person for some specific examples and arguments to support their comment. More often then not they don''t have anything intelligent to offer. And if they do, at least they have posted something somewhat usefull.

Basically what I''m saying is that you can do what these people wish for you to do, and flame them back, or you can go a level above them and actually post something intelligent

--TheGoop

I have to agree. The whole point of the forums is to help out with questions and develop a true game programmer''s community. When I can help, I post a response, and when I am stuck, I appriciate non-condescending remarks.

We all had to start somewhere, and no one started alone. It''s ashame when someone can treat someone as lower than them, when they were once at that point. Sad...

I''ve noticed more non-constructive comments in the last month or so. I think, though, it''s more of a seasonal thing. That is right now a lot of kids are off from school and don''t have better things to do than to post randomly to web based forums. (Personally, I''m home sick, so I''ve had nothing better to do last few days.)

I''ll admit that when someone posts something that you *know* in your gut to be either tainted with prejudice or just plain wrong, it''s hard to keep that feeling out of the tone of your own posts. Re-reading some of what I posted in the Visual Basic / C++ thread seems unnecesarrily belligerent. But what can I say? Closed minds irritate me greatly.

Some of it, though, seems beyond belligerent, and is simply infantile. But, again, maybe it''s merely seasonal. If it keeps up, I''ll be alarmed. For the moment I''m just hoping that they get those language filters in place.

And I''m thanking the heavens that very few "kewl D00dz" post here.

I found that out when I posted Future of game programming, I didn''t know that I wrote it in meaning of angry someone (pure accident) Some times Arrogant people whose ideas are threatened like C++ programmer who writes "Visual Basic sux" topic and only reason for this is because he is closed minded: "I will learn and use only C++ because it''s the fastest and the only language!"

Real flame wars are usually started by accident.

Time comes, time goes and I only am.

I totally agree with you. I''am asking sometimes stupid q''s for learning.
Sig