Things are better on AW.net now than before, but *you do have* a site culture which prohibits the slightest insinuation/hypothesis that MorphOS or AROS could actually have *any kind* of merits close to, equal to, or superior to OS4.
People are on there all the time saying MorphOS is superior in one way or another. Some MorphOS proponents seem to post more on AW.net than they do Morphzone. Lets be real on this.
Such arguments aren't met with factual counter arguments, as you would expect in a civilized discussion, but fought with the usual "Foul!", "Moderators!", "Enemy of the Amiga!", "How can this outrageous behavior be allowed?" kind of response.
Such arguments are sometimes met by what you describe and sometimes met with factual counter arguments, even though you don't want to admit that. Usually most such crying occurs when a MorphOS evangelist throws in a factual zinger in a thread that had nothing to do with MorphOS. People get upset at thread hijacks. They don't need to hear that MorphOS is faster in a benchmark when they are trying to discuss Timberwolf or whatever.
After much internal grief and agony, the site decided to allow discussions about these OS's, but only in a separated, "second class citizen" forum. For a very long time, posts in this forum was hidden away from the front page, and when it was suggested to change this; that MorphOS and AROS discussions *would actually be visible*, it caused the World War III at the site.
I actually was one of the most vocal supporters of the Alt Amiga OS forum showing on the main page. ssolie and I had several public arguments over this. Membership voted for it getting on the main page, and it did. The point that I think irks many AW.net regulars at this point is that there is a group of MorphOS users that don't use that forum much, if at all, and instead seek to hijack and/or derail OS4 threads in OS4 forums.
Every now and then when some MorphOS or AROS news are posted there, *there will still be* meta-discussions about the fact that the news item was even posted at all (read: it shouldn't be allowed).
To be more accurate some people are upset at the dubious timing of some MorphOS news items. I have been forwarded IRC chat transcripts which (if genuine) show that as sad as this is, there is at least occasional coordination to sink OS4 news items down the list. As for the site and its staff though, when did you last ever hear of us rejecting a MorphOS news item? And we hardly ever re-order new items. And when we do its usually for something very timely.
