Well what I noticed isn't personal attacks. Its discrediting an users experience with Vista. You know why we haven't used it for very long? Because it crashes. One crash and loosing of data is enough for me. Its like sticking a needle in ones eye and having someone say "It will feel better if you keep doing it." Great you never had problems with Vista and you pour over reports and websites. But I want a stable OS without having to tweak things to make it work. To me that should fall on the laps of Microsoft not the end users.
That right there.
It's like you guys think everyone else is so stupid that they cannot tell a rant from a legitimate complaint and therefore you must step up to defend the honor of Microsoft or something. It's lunacy. Step back once and just look at how fucking silly it is, seriously. Its really getting to the point where you've got to practically write a fucking book just to have your opinion respected in these forums, and it shouldn't be that way.
And that right there.
That's where the real problem lies here.
The first of those is an example of a really, really silly approach to troubleshooting and problem solving. A problem is encountered and the immediate reaction is to assume that it is an OS 'fault' and to engage in criticism of the software. Thing is, though, that the people who've been engaged in troubleshooting problems for Windows users over a long period of time generally understand that 'crashes' almost inevitably result from software issues, device driver issues and/or user errors. Windows itself basically doesn't 'crash'. Something running in Windows causes a crash. Encountering a problem and then bewailing about how Windows "sucks" or some other such serves no useful purpose, and is simply an exercise in promoting misinformation, intentional or otherwise. Windows XP (even with SP2 integrated) needs configuring and tweaking to give a good stable experience for every combination of hardware, software and user activity, so making such claims about Vista specifically is rather silly.
People who post comment in response, effectively saying "No, it's probably not that Windows sucks. There's almost certainly a problem here with something that you've done." are really only trying to get to the heart of the issue at hand. Occasionally - very occasionally - there will be a genuine 'bug' in the Windows code underlying the issue. But most of the time in order to resolve problems there will be need to identify:
- The device driver which is causing the problem
- The incompatible or buggy program which is causing the problem or...
- The incorrect procedure which the end-user has used and which has caused the problem.
All the crying about Microsoft, supposedly 'spyware' inclusions or whatever else hobby-horse in the world is merely an intrusion upon cold, hard fact. Windows is a 'flawed' platform, and always has been, because of its underlying conceptual framework.
Each new version is an improvement, but not an elimination of those fundamental issues. Those factors are a 'given' which nobody really disputes. People saying "No, that's not actually true at all" in response to the wild claims of woe aren't actually claiming that Windows (any version) is a perfect platform. The intial, rather silly comment becomes much more difficult to address when people jump aboard the bandwagon.
The second of those quotes is an example of the response people often receive when they genuinely try to address problems and concerns of others who are running the Windows platform. The approach taken is to belittle people making positive attempts to address operational issues and matters of accurate information dissemination. People who are not actually trying to "defend Microsoft's honour" but who are rather simply seeking to see positive discussion and genuine efforts to assist, free from the intejections of the 'haters' who almost always aren't even interested in the Windows platform.
Fine sentiments, and most of it quite undeniable. Before your post even appeared yesterday I'd made comment touching upon similar concerns. So had duby and perhaps others also.odoe said:Everyone in the corner.
You've had your fun.
Here is how things should work.
You guys apparently had some misunderstandings.
Ok.
Move on.
This whole troll and FUD thing is getting out of hand. I don't want to see people being called out as trolls or their statements immediately dismissed as FUD. More like you should inquire further into their issues. What happened here? This whole Vista release has just an ugly line in the sand on this forum and you guys made it. Nothing is perfect, as well as nothing is as bad as it seems. I'm just asking for you guys to stop attacking each other, stop making this whole thing so personal and stop chewing each other out. You guys have all contributed to this forum in a positive way at one time or another and now you are ALL bringing the forum down a notch. All of you. I'm sorry, but it's true. I'm not against some fun and games, but there is some straight mean spiritedness in here and it's saddening to see in this forum. I can see where some people are coming from about being ganged up on for differing opinions. We have had problems with holier than art thou attitudes on this forum before and always come down to your crap stinking as much as the next guys. We've also had a problem with overly defensive attitudes on this forum as well. The two just fuel each other and some of you thrive one it.
Whatever issues you guys have, move past it.
I'm going to leave this open so everyone can kiss and make up.
Get to it.
But there's an inherent 'flaw' in the approach as well, Simple fact is that the entirety of the blame and responsibility for the bickering that's been evident can't and shouldn't be attributed to people participating, irrespective of 'what side of the fence' their soapbox stance originates from. There is a structural issue here which is very much contributing to the creation of the situation we see.
There's a forum section here for Linux/Other free OS's. From what I've seen it's a pretty well-behaved section. I've glanced over it from time to time and not seen evidence of endless bickering about soapbox issues. Sure, there are the inevitable anti-MS/Windows negativity comments posted there, but Windows users don't go there creating a free-for-all. I'm sure they would be discouraged from doing so anyway, and that's as it should be.
But Windows-related problems and concerns must, by necessity, be posted in a more general 'Operating systems' section rather than a Windows-specific section, and thus exist within somewhat of a 'free-for-all right from the outset. They are prone to intrusions by people who really aren't even interested in Windows to begin with. To that extent, it's a structural problem feeding a behavioural problem.
It isn't enough to dismiss it all as 'fun' or 'misunderstandings'. Encouraging people to use more politeness in communicating with one anotheris good and well, but when the stage is set from the outset for a shit-fight the best you can really hope for is that people are going to end up having a shit-fight in honeyed and insincere language.
A Windows-specific section for the Windows-specific topics is warranted, methinks. That'd make it easier to identify and discourage the people jumping into topics for purely mischievous reasons. People ARE doing that. That ain't a 'misunderstanding'.