My $0.02, although it's at the risk of pushing this thread even further off-topic....
The internet reflects life offline. Each forum likely has more or less the same breakdown of participants, no matter what the topic. Here's where I'm going with this (and I'll strive to be brief):
I once heard the following analogy. The precise numbers aren't as important as getting the general sense of proportions.
If your car broke down at night way out in the middle of BFE and you had no cell service and no notion of what direction would get you to the closest semblance of civilization or other assistance, and a random vehicle at long last happens down your road and slows down to offer assistance and you accept, then there's a 80/15/5 percent probability as to what kind of person just stopped to offer help:
- 80% chance they're offering genuine help, able to empathize with your situation, and you will get the help you need
- 15% chance they could be sizing up the situation, and if they feel you might have a weak moment, they might try to take advantage of you (make you give them all your cash, or your nice watch, or your cell phone, or whatever, before helping you, assuming they don't try to do something without you noticing, eg, pick your pocket)
- 5% chance they wouldn't think twice about doing you in, and doing what they want with your car, your possessions, etc
Feel free to tweak the numbers to suit your own beliefs, eg, 85/14/1 or whatever. Whatever you feel is a reasonable breakdown, take that template and keep it handy, no matter whether you're having a night out on the town, at the big sporting event, at a pub, in a chat room, on a forum, whatever.
I think it would be great to be able to expunge all the creepers. Click 'Expunge' and they're dealt with. Best we can hope for is for is for the person in question to slip up and share key info with the wrong person. To do better than this would require the collection of data from this forum and from any other forums we suspect the individual has participated in, and start grinding on the data for common points.
It's a shame that a single individual can ruin the helpful dissemination of experiences (eg, surgery) for everyone. Their filters are likely skewed, so trying to reason with them is not likely to be fruitful. Best we can do is to be vigilant.