[Eee Pad Transformer General] DaveRichardson:
mb02,

I understand and appreciate the "search first" rule; and I actually agree that a temp-ban for breaking forum rules is appropriate. What is inappropriate is dishing out smug keyboard-lashings. Someone creates a new post asking something that's been covered a million times before? "Sorry, you've been temp-banned for violation of forum rules. Please read these two threads (blahblah) to understand why and help you become a quality contributor. Hope to see you back."

Not, 'Is the search bar missing, or are you just an idiot? Disconnect your router, crawl in a corner, and die.'

Also, who doesn't have a job that involves dealing with frustrating people while remaining civil?

Moderation is important. Enforcing forum rules is important. Stuff like this, "if you can't use google, rid yourself of the Internet, save yourself the trouble, and save us from you. Welcome to Earth." is disrespectful garbage. I'm an adult with an education, job, and family. If you spoke like that to me in person, we would have an issue.

Jerdog,

I actually already read both of those before I joined -- and they did help me better understand XDA's history. I'm not defending the entitled, "this isn't working, fix it," and "when is the next release???," etc. crowd. Far from it. Those people are guilty of the same disrespect I'm so tired of seeing, and I'm glad the moderators stay on top of that. I know I get tired of reading development threads to figure out how the guys are doing on a particular project and wading through a soup of worthless posts (following the "Virtuous Galaxy" rom development in the Iconia forum was a perfect example of this).

I can only imagine how annoying that is for Mike, Gnufabio, Roach, Rothnic, et al. (That said, I also doubt these guys would be as amazingly prolific as they are if they didn't know that thousands of us non-dev muggles love and appreciate their work.)

If XDA is in fact a place to "learn and share knowledge" (and I hope I eventually can absorb enough know-how from these guys to make and share something of my own...even if it's just a simple framework button/battery mod), that abhors "disrespect, rudeness and fun-ruining"...why so much of that from moderators? It seems Iron Fist simply flipped the script on who gets to be rude. (Again, I have no issue with closing/moving threads and forum housekeeping.)

But this kind of stuff: "Wanna leave? Go ahead. I beg you, please do" ?

Why would you be that hostile?

I understand that this is a free, could-be-invite-only forum, I don't have to pay a thing to use it, XDA has more registered users than it wants, and you have every right to tell me to pound sand. But why would you? I've been learning here, and do my best to share my limited knowledge (even it it means PMing someone the thread that would help them solve their issue because the thread is closed and I can't post in it).

Keep the Development sub-forum limited to the dev elite, but if people stick around (in the General and Questions sub-forums) and learn because their first misstep was corrected respectfully (rather than brutally), maybe they'll be developing a popular rom or theme in a year or two!