Originally Posted by dark shadow

That would seem the logical way to approach the situation, but people aren't logical. There have been psychological and sociological studies done which show that people latch on to the crowd whenever possible. conformity is a natural human reaction. When this is applied to the internet, through the context of anonymous online interaction via message boards as this, when the topic is negative and everyone begins to latch on to why this sucks, flaming and general chaos tends to erupt.

You are right, it is the content of the discussion that matters. However, negative topics tend to devolve far faster than positive ones with people commenting on why they dislike or disagree. Of course, flaming of those with different opinions still can happen, and there are always trolls which throw off the entire equation. Still, negativity in general creates a bad template to begin the topic with, especially in the case of ignorant or biased questions such as this one.