I've seen a lot of people trying to give what they believe to be accurate accounts of the forum. This usually involves labelling two groups: a group who attacks the community, and the innocent victims who are harmed as a result. Here's the funny thing: When someone is labelling the groups of the community, they always label the fans of their favorite brand as being the victims, while labelling the fans of an opposing fanbase as those who harm the community.

This mentality is used by fans of all members of the Big Three, so obviously they can't all be right. Most of them are wrong and the cause is clear. People's perspective of attacks on the forums are directly correlated with their gaming preference. Even if it's not intentional, you are more likely to notice attacks on something you passsionate about rather than something you dislike. You can try to be as impartial as possible, but ultimately your memory is going to have tendencies and inclinations based on your own emotions.

Even if you somehow had a perfect method for measuring the ratio of attacks you personally observe, it would still be impossible to form a comprehensive analysis of the entire site. If you have certain likes and dislikes, then you are obviously going to be in certain areas of the site more than others. As a fan of A console who is apathetic towards B console, you are not going to spend an equal amount of time in the B threads as the A threads. That makes it literally impossible to give an accurate account of all areas of the forum.

That's why I often laugh at people who think they have some perfect overview of the community. You don't. You just don't. Even I admit I don't as I know certain things bother me more than others. I'm not saying it's bad that you have a biased view of the communty; I just want some people to recognize that fact, because people look silly when they give their "unbiased" review of the community and it ALWAYS breaks down just like everyone else's review.  

Here's a test for you to see if you are qualified to give a perfect, accurate, unbiased, comprehensive account of the community:

- Do you spend more time in certain threads than others?
- When describing the community, do you use your fallible memory rather than a objective, thourough analysis of data?
- Does your description of the community involve your favorite console's fans being innocent?

If you answered yes to any of the above, then your view of the community probably isn't accurate.

People actually accuse the other party of attacking their party/VGC community? That's crazy, why in the world you classify defense/debate as "attack" on the VGC Community. I mean, I understand that you would say trolling against a certain company is an attack but on the whole of VGC? I don't understand how some people can say that...

Anyhow, I always consider it as a cycle. People debate about Nintendo, people get mad, people get proved wrong... People debate about Sony... etc. Like I said, it's a cycle. I do find it more annoying when people troll/debate Nintendo, though, as I am a fan of the company.

I'm talking about people who think they know A fans do more trolling than B fans, or that their console gets more hate than another, etc. completely disregarding the fact that their bias is heavily controlling their memory.

It's interesting that more people aren't posting in this thread. You made a good point.

sony fans trolled first

the infighting is addictive.. i didnt post hardly at all until the ps4 debacle. i seriously didnt care about the forums until the fighting started. but im ready for it to go chill out.

i cant remember trolling atari fans on vgc

In my time here I have managed to get into arguments with fans of all of 3 companies. I think my ability to rile up all groups speaks to my impartiality.

I agree with you Jay.

Though I must admit. To be completely honest, all the fighting makes me a much more knowledgable gamer. As in I learn the mistakes and faults of each company, things most gamers wouldn't really know at all. I say most because we, as well as other video game sites, are a small number compared to the people who don't frequent such sites.

I guess it's kinda silly, but it can yield some very valuable information.