The thread that started with the message titled "Peomitheus Passive Preamp Anyone?" in the Circles' Audio Central forum, posted in September of last year, is up to 118 pages of responses. It has more than 30,000 views and has received 1,171 responses, keeping it on the first page of the forum almost every day! The original post said nothing different from the kinds of things any owner would say about a new acquisition.

Another one like that is the hot potato that everyone is interested in. Someone says something difficult or controversial, and everyone seems to want to say something, but they don't want to get into an escalating conflict. So the post sits for a long time, and then gets its first reply. After that, the exchange builds slowly but pretty soon everyone wants to give their opinion. Those are very often the kind that turn into 100-post threads.

Sometimes the group dynamic is as interesting as the discussion.

I could post a controversial message on the Pi Spekers forum and see what happens. How about "Pi Speakers Suck", and in the text I could pick a brand and post a bogus message about how the other brand is better. I could even use reviewspeak terms like "authoritative bass", "liquid midrange", "smooth and sparkly treble". Or I could say going from the Pi speakers to brand X is like "lifting a veil".

But you would probably move the thread to the Dungeon:)

I have always been pretty lucky about not having problems with horseplay or unfriendly sockpuppets and shills on the π Speakers forum, but I have had one or two over the years. I just delete them on the rare occasion that they pop up. If someone has a legitimate complaint, we can usually resolve it and those kinds of posts aren't deleted. But if it's horseplay, like Magnetar saying something about your mother or Romy the Cat saying some unrecognizable nonsense with racial slurs and insults mixed in, that gets deleted.

Personally, I have no respect for a website owner that allows that kind of stuff just to build traffic. I know some folks like that, and I don't want to have anything to do with them. Public mesageboards aren't a local bar where you can hang out and cut up in relative privacy with a few of your friends. Internet discussion forums have very high traffic and comments made in them are permanent.

Then I realized that these type of posts cut down on the "me too" posts in legitimate threads and also cut down on thread "crapping" by individuals that had nothing productive to say otherwise.

So I have since "gotten over it" so to speak.