The forum was still going strong when they shut it down.
However, some of what you're referring to goes on at all sites that have a decent number of people, you're simply not involved in it here. Which I'm very glad to see, dude!!!!!!
And your explanations were good and did help, just not w/ the people you were fighting w/. Most of that was fighting just to fight, not fighting w/ purpose.
On any frequently visited site, you are going to have those types. Those types just want to fight, to prick your skin, to play little games. If you ignore them, they pretty much go away, or at the very most are left squeaking in a corner while the world rushes by. Since they have no real mind, you're never going to get to them, and if you let them get to you, they win.
I learned this the hard way myself, BTW. Which was a great lesson because I learned two key methods from the stupid fights. 1) Walk away. If you're in a conversation going nowhere, it simply doesn't matter how many times you repeat yourself, they aren't listening anyway and are mostly trying to get under your skin. It's actually amazing how the vitriol leaves your system when you simply go to another topic and start conversing about something else, and how if you go back a week or two later, you have almost no feeling at all about the whole schmeer. And often what you said in anger sounds pretty lame at that point.
2) Ignore. Those little annoying squeakers are always on the site and always will be. This is prolly the most helpful strategy I've ever learned for internet use. Simply pass over their posts. It is hard at first, because it's the old trainwreck thing, you just have to look. However, you can train yourself not to. Just don't. After a few times, it actually gets a lot easier to just not read the crapp!!!
