In addition, we get people who cannot be bothered to read the answers that they were given or reflect on those answers before immediately shouting, "Bully", "Meanie", or other rude names at people who responded with answers that were not what the OP wished to read or answers that used gentle humor to illustrate a point.
I'm am indeed angry that people who are getting free advice from those who know respond with insults.
You know, I don't have any time for the "y'all are a bunch of meanies" crowd in general. I don't think your characterisation fits this particular thread. I find myself on the OP's side.
There were 11 replies before the GCF. Three of these gave genuine advice. Two were replies from the OP, who responded in earnest when forumites were mocking. The most funny to read was the second post. So funny, in fact, that it was HOFed, and this piece of wit was celebrated in other replies.
History matters in this case. The OP in the recent past posted another thread asking for advice. On this thread, she admitted to being that poster and not checking on the follow-ups for specious "I forgot" reasons.
This I don't get. Why so much anger and frustration over a few posts that you could just as easily ignore?
In real life, we can't always avoid the clueless or the annoying - or even worse! those who dare to disagree with us. But here it's possible.
Of course, in real life there might be consequences for showing frustratation and anger towards people we feel deserve it. Here, we're free to indulge, if we choose.
So are you a protector of the fora? Or do you just enjoy being provoked? (It's a real, not a rhetorical question.)
This particular poster mentioned that we were all angry and frustrated academics. That's not a true characterization of the regulars, but many of us do at time become angry and frustrated that people who ask for advice turn out not to want the benefit of our wisdom. This poster is about the eleventh this week to do something odd in response to genuine responses (again, this is the second thread that she started because she just plain ignored the genuine answers to the first one) so this poster got an honest answer about why some of us decide to snark under what seems to the infrequent reader to be little or no provocation.
If someone is the first this week to be a little off, then that someone will probably be ok. If someone is the Nth this week to pull something odd, then the snark is likely to fly. Maybe that's not fair, but that is why such things happen.
Now, maybe your idea of "gentle" humor and mine are different. I wonder, though, what conclsions you'd draw if you were to ask for advice from a group of people who were strangers to you, and they responded by mocking and then high-fiving each other for it?
If I walked up to a bunch of people and said essentially how do I get around your sensible rules because I can't be bothered to make progress in the acceptable way, then I would expect them to mock me as well. People who ask real questions get real answers. People who ask out-of-bounds questions get mocking answers. That's the way the world often works even in real life.
In any case, I don't think being more generous in which classifying a school as "premiere" is a particularly grievous crime.
When I read the other thread, the first thing that came into my mind was that this person seems to spend a lot of time looking for the easy way instead of knuckling down to do the standard way.
The second thing that came into my mind was the question of how much remedial work the person would need because a business background does not seem to be suited for immediate admission to a medical program.
