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Well, see, the problem there is that I'm not so arrogant as to tell people when they should be insulted, or so arrogant as to set myself up as the arbiter of good taste by "ranking" insults according to my own secret formula. Aside from that, you can semi-rationalize posts about alternative OS'es on threads about bugs, holes, security flaws, et cetera - I personally think that it's thread hijacking, but I'm going to let it go, because I don't need to take on edge cases to make my case.

So, instead, I went through the last 17 threads on Longhorn, where Longhorn was in the title or the keywords, in order to see how many times Apple users hijacked the thread with comparisons that had absolutely no purpose other than to provoke - and that's the only possible reason for making such posts about unreleased software, to parade one's superiority and provoke others. So, of the 17 thread with Longhorn in the title or keywords, how many of them do you suppose were graced with the presence of the "Get a Mac!" posters? Go on, take a guess.

Okay, I'll tell you - of the last 17 threads about Longhorn, 15 of them had someone chiming in, absolutely unbidden, of course, with the "Get a Mac!" chorus. That's 88% of the threads about Longhorn, for those playing at home. So basically, this notion that you guys do nothing to provoke the flamewars, that it's just those nasty other folks invading someone else's thread and causing all the trouble, is just complete BS. Sell it somewhere else.

See, if there's a real difference between us, it's that I'm perfectly capable of recognizing that this is a topic that lots of people are passionate about, on all sides, and that no faction has anything remotely resembling innocence here. If you guys want to continue deluding yourselves about how sweet and special and oppressed you are, be my guest, but I see no reason whatsoever for me to actively support such nonsense. Troll on that.

and that no faction has anything remotely resembling innocence here.

I do see a lot of Mac references that assume old hardware and operating systems. There are claims of viruses in the wild, or an OS without SMP and preemptive multitasking, not good for server use and having no appreciable server software for it. I've also seen hardware claims that it is completely non-standard and closed (as in, can't get standard peripherals, hard drives, memory, etc.).

I can't remember a Mac person slamming Windows for being just a DOS shell or having no file security features (IOW, confusing current Windows with 9x).

That's 88% of the threads about Longhorn, for those playing at home. So basically, this notion that you guys do nothing to provoke the flamewars, that it's just those nasty other folks invading someone else's thread and causing all the trouble, is just complete BS. Sell it somewhere else.

Sell it yourself. I looked at the Mac threads... and 100% were invaded by Windows partisans... and usually included insults to the Mac users.

I went through seven of your Longhorn threads (latest back) and found only ONE insult from a Mac user to a Windows users... but multiple insults from Windows users to Mac users. Often the subject of Macs was brought up either in the posted article or by a Windows user... making it a legitimate subject for discussion in those threads, especially if a comparison was being made one way or the other.