[ShyAnne]

Originally Posted by Step666

However, regarding your other point, I personally believe that the atmosphere here at MR can be attributed, in the large part, to the Mods, Admin and the way the site is run - to argue otherwise is a huge slap-in-the-face and grossly unfair.

Wow, "slap-in-the-face" ..."grossly unfair"? Hmm, employing a pogo stick to jump to conclusions? Who is attempting to "argue otherwise", or even argue at all for that matter. Relax

My second point merely stated: It's a question of atmosphere rather than how each site's fora are run. It did not in any way imply that either atmosphere is "better" or "worse", nor did it advance or disparage the efforts of any particular person(s) in creating or maintaining any particular atmosphere. Whether or not either is "better" is entirely dependent upon personal preference as you have already acknowledged twice. So far I have not stated a preference, merely an acknowledgment that two different atmospheres exist.

You seem to want a preference to be stated, so to that end I will say that I do very much prefer the atmosphere here at MR. However that does not mean I can't appreciate a different atmosphere, such as the one at Rockbox. People do have different preferences, including in creating and maintaining an atmosphere as well as appreciating an existing one. The fact that Asperger's syndrome apparently is a factor governing the atmosphere over there is significant in that respect.

Agreed that there certainly are fora that are ruined by fanboy rantings or certain persons' asinine behavior toward others that is allowed to go unchecked even though similar behavior, even if only in defense, is never tolerated from others. Thankfully, that does not happen here and does not happen at Rockbox.org either, despite the decidedly different atmospheres at each. That is what was meant by "both are well run".

Originally Posted by Step666

But I personally believe that if there are MR members with iPods who are interested in RockBox who want to talk about it here and can do so in a polite and reasonable manner, then there's no reason why there shouldn't be a thread on it - it's not like we're renaming the site to PodRiver...

A "thread" is not the same as an entire forum, I don't think anyone would object to a thread. As to an entire forum, there are also MR members with Sansa E2xx players and Cowon/iAudio X5 players who also are using and/or interested in Rockbox. So where to draw the line? Tell the Sansa and Cowon owners "Sorry, only Rockbox on iPod"? Creating multiple Rockbox-on-other-brand fora to the point where this ceases to be an iriver site and becomes a secondary Rockbox site or just another general DAP site? I don't believe either is the right answer, so opening a special Rockbox on iPod forum would create more problems than it may solve.

Originally Posted by Step666

I'm not saying you're wrong to want that to be the case or to react in such a manner but to expect everyone to do all the relevant background reading and to follow the rules is a tad naive.

Just an aside, but odd you should mention the above. High intelligence combined with a certain (at times even shocking) naiveté regarding social clues and how to expect others to behave in a given situation is a hallmark of Asperger's. On a trivia note, Canadian comedian Dan Akroyd has officially diagnosed Aperger's syndrome. Speculation is that Bill Gates may have it as well but that's only speculation, no official diagnosis.