I had high hopes for this board when I first came here as being a much improved version of the Yahoo Intel board with a lot of the repetitiveness and ugliness removed. It is much better on those counts but this board nonetheless has its own set of problems that leave me substantially disappointed.
The board might more reliably be called the anti-INTC board as the negative Intel crowd substantially outnumbers the pro-Intel crowd. The negative Intel posters are obviously the pro-ARM crowd. My question is why do these people need to hang out here. If they are big on ARM that's fine. But let them go to the ARM board to express those feelings. It's like if you are a Red Sox fan going to Yankee stadium to express your support for the Sox. There is something in your face about that that is just not right.
The board is also substantially overwhelmed by the postings of a few of the ARM fans. A huge percentage of today's posts came from fpg, Andy Grave and Ash. As such an Intel fan can only feel like an intruder on the Intel board.
Now some people might say that it's improper to classify Ash as an ARM fan as opposed to an Intel fan. But Ash now flips into his highly emotional Intel rants often enough that I don't think anyone really will ever think of him as an Intel fan again. This is why he was subjected to such a heavy level of bile and venom on the Yahoo Intel board that he felt compelled to leave. While most all of this was grossly undeserved, one still has to recognize the frustration that was caused by how violently he sometimes bounced back and forth in his pro/con relationship with Intel and how betrayed a lot of Intel fans felt because of this behavior.
Ash has somehow become the sacred cow of the iHub INTC board. If you don't handle your criticism of his bounces very carefully then you get a ball bat used on your sensitivities. I just don't know that the standards are being applied equitably in both directions. And for a moderator to be deleting posts of people he is arguing with is just not right. Those decisions should always be made by a moderator not directly involved.
I'm also troubled by this "no personal attacks" methodology that has been established and how it is managed.
So, if someone posts an outright lie and you call that person a liar, then the person posting the lie is deemed to be the person needing protection and the person addressing that is deemed to be the offending party who needs counseling and maybe the boot.
Really? Do we really need to protect the liars?
The same thing could be said for distortions.
A higher standard might be to not allow "unwarranted personal attacks". Frankly, there are some posts that are being made on here that deserve personal attacks because they are intellectually dishonest to an extreme degree. How do you tell someone that they have done something intellectually dishonest without it being personal?
A number of posters have figured out how to be extremely offensive in a way that avoids the personal attack standard. And that is apparently not a problem in terms of board behavior. So, you can totally trash talk Intel without repercussions.
The bottom line for me is that I don't really want to hang out on the ARM board and that is what this has pretty much become. In fact I am pretty irritated over the subversion of this board by the ARM contingent and I find it extremely offensive.
I'm pretty sure that if I went to the ARM board and engaged in the behavior that the ARM fanbois do here that it would get people pretty excited.
I think these developments have made this board dysfunctional. There are less and less reasons every day for any Intel fan to come here to discuss matters. I guess I'm being silly in thinking that this should be a safe and comfortable place for Intel fans to hang out. It's not.
AI
