Originally Posted by pichlo

"Hostile"? Seriously? I was just thinking how mellow it has turned after a short period of increased hostility a few months ago.

Originally Posted by Fellfrosch

I hope, this is not true!
That would be a shame and BIG mistake. Even so, Dave sometimes also got on my nerves, I see absolutely NO reason for banning him!

Can anybody official give a statement on this?

Originally Posted by nthn

I've only just seen this post, but would still like to reply that con artists can (also) accurately be described as "someone simply trying to sell something". You are completely ignoring all context and painting said member as wholly innocent and everyone who dishes out criticism as some sort of brutish monster. It's not some bloke who found TMO and said "oh, I still have an old N900 lying around, might as well sell it to these enthusiasts", it isn't even a collector who's trimming their collection, instead it's the very definition of a scalper. A wolf in sheep's clothes, if you will. The idea that sheep should be nice and kind to a wolf just because he's temporarily dressing as a sheep is plainly ridiculous.

By the way, if you read this post, do you still assume innocence? Before that post, the only things that were said were "that's expensive" and "Turing phones don't receive any software updates". Does that really warrant such a rude and pompous reply from the seller?

As a final note, it's probably too far gone now but the past couple of years there's been a strongly increasing trend to write off all criticism, snarky or not, as 'trolling', but that's not at all what trolling is about. Unfortunately, most of the times it's now used to say "I don't agree with you, hence you're a troll". The same thing has happened to a slightly lesser extent to the concept of a 'strawman': "I don't agree with or simply don't understand your argument, therefore it's a strawman". It's really frustrating as these debate stoppers (in my language there's a nice word for them called 'dooddoeners': death-doers/killers) quickly kill off all legitimate discussion.

Originally Posted by wicket

Thank you for replying. Your post is a good example that illustrates my point, so I'm going to entertain a response for one last time.

There is no suggestion in that thread that the seller is a "con artist", only complaints that the price is unjustified. Selling an item at exuberant price does not make one a con artist. If there is a buyer willing to pay the set price, then both parties walk away happy. For the buyer to be conned, the seller would have to run away with the money or send something that did not match the description. The seller provided an option for purchasing the device via a secure method (eBay) that includes a money back guarantee. He has 100% positive feedback on an account that over 13 years old. He also offered an option for an offline deal which could be susceptible to a con. If someone chooses the offline option over the secure method and then ends up being conned, they've no one to blame but themselves.

Going back to my point... these days on TMO, you make a contribution to a thread which might be something as trivial as sharing a link about a relevant news update, and it gets torn apart. So you feel the need to justify your contribution, only for that to get torn apart. So you justify your justification, and it goes on and on and it gets to the point where you question why you bothered contributing anything in the first place.