New-ish to Audiogon Forums... Is it always like this?

yep you purdy much got the fix on things here

but one needs to understand that many people come here not knowing, have money, not knowhow, needing to learn, so it behooves us who have been around the block to have some capacity to educate

but i do agree, if, upon prompting for more info, the asker of the question still doesn’t step up, it is then clearly worth my time and effort to answer thoughtfully

many of the comments made are accurate and insightful

i would only further add that this is an open forum, there is no qualification checking or needed to post... so as said earlier one needs to hang out here enough and understand (and research, via past posts) who the poster of any particular comment is

you can see how many posts a member has, for each comment posted, then you can click ’details’ of the username, see their history of trading gear, their feedback score, and importantly, whether they list a ’system’ with photos of it

there are some famous/infamous folks here who are provocative, seem to live here with no other meaningful life activity, been kicked out for their bad behavior, then come back repeatedly under new usernames... this classic ’troll’ pattern is
-- 'joined date' just 2-3 months ago
-- over 1.000 posts in that short time
-- zero history or user feedback as equipment trader
-- no system listed no photos
-- yet post after post, denigrating, arguing, being a ’know it all’

@mapman

yes, at audio circle there are notably fewer trolls and time wasters, manufacturers are clearly labelled as such, mods do not tolerate negativity and stamp it out 

@sbank

haha spencer... great descriptions... you must be in consumer marketing as a profession!!!