unfocused said:
I could go on, but that's a good start. How about others? What is it that makes you want to never again return to this site. And what is it that keeps bringing you back here?
There are two sort of users:
- Group 1:
Photography enthusiasts who use Canon gear and want to learn more or exchange opinions about it, but are also ready to criticize Canon when they're disappointed about a product and/or comparing Canon's offer to the competition;
- Group 2:
Canon enthusiasts who have a sort of religious-like attitude toward their favourite multinational company and take every negative feedback as an outrage to their person.
So what happens is that whenever someone from Group 1 criticizes Canon (or praises another company) about something there will be someone from Group 2 calling him a troll or - the most ludicrous - a bad photographer. Every sort of argument will be used to prove that
Canon is better - even if they're plainly and extremely OT.
In my experience the second group is the problem, as it is aggressive: they often feel personally attacked and reply consequently. It happens the same (or even worse) in Apple-dedicated fora as well as local/national Canon Club boards. The attitude towards DxO measurement would be an example of that: they don't say that
my gear is better? They're a bunch of fools and they don't know what they're talking about.
In my experience, in other boards where people are less biased about one or another company, things are smoother. People don't feel outraged by negative comments about this or that, so they don't reply aggressively and rudely, and no flame is triggered. Actually, it's important to know what's good and what's bad about a piece of gear, and when people seek this sort of unbiased knowledge the whole environment is more relaxed and polite and people are more motivated to post well-written replies and keep it peaceful and civilized.
So why am I here? As a Canon user it's always interesting to see how people handle their Canon-compatible gear. Knowing the strenghts and the limits of something gives me a good idea of what is worth buying and what is not. But I definitely belong to Group 1: I shoot both Canon and Nikon and I absolutely don't care about brands. I always try to buy the best gear I can afford, so I'm not interested in praising Canon products for the sake of it. That's not constructive.