Forgive my indulgence, but I wanted to let you guys know how much I appreciated this board. In the past week I've had experience seeking help from two different communities. I would have come here, but these were very specific cases (Craigslist "violations" and Wii hacking). I went to each of these forums and went in as humble and friendly as I could possibly be.

I was then treated with the most rude, impatient, insulting "help" I can think of. In both cases, a single person responded and basically said "well, if you weren't an idiot who was trying to actively piss me off, you wouldn't have done that stupid thing you did."

These reactions were so bad, in one case I tried politely asking if they could please help me and try not to be so rude. As I fully expected, this resulted in more derision and rudeness. In the other situation I tried the opposite approach and continued being as friendly and humble ("please forgive this Wii hacking newbie" kind of stuff) and while the guy didn't get any better, at least he didn't get any worse.

In both cases, it would have honestly been easier to simply help me out with my problem.

So thank you, everyone. Sometimes I feel like I should never leave the house (the empeg board).