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I'm a bit surprised by his attack on you, on a tech board no less. Is there some history between you two that I don't know about? (or forgot, happens a lot lately LOL).
I see things differently. Assuming no posts were deleted from that thread, it appeared to me that dkbit98 refuted QS's comments based solely on his reputation. QS's reputation aside, I've always thought of him as somewhat technically astute, and his questions in that thread were valid. Perhaps the question about about dkbit98's involvement in the project was a loaded one, I don't know. Even if it wasn't I can see how dkbit98 might have interpreted it that way.
I will say that I believe dkbit98 has had a short fuse lately, he attacked me a couple of weeks ago. Maybe I deserved it,
I was shilling spyware, after all.
The questions about dkbit98‘s involvement in the project came after his attacks. I don’t think it is u reasonable to conclude that dkbit98 is shilling for the project based on his attacks. The initial questions were reasonable as you note. In addition to the conclusion of dkbit98‘s inconvenient, attacks on someone asking basic questions should tell onlookers they should be asking more questions.
dkbit98 had a history of attacking people that disagree with him. See his interactions with Lucius, HCP, ~DefaultTrust, and I would not be surprised if there are others.
Overall, I agree with the point that attacking someone else is not a good idea and it tends to be a sign of weakness to not be able to separate the person from the argument and sometimes to become too emotional about some kind of criticism that has happened that was not really an attack but was merely a criticism.
Surely, if the other person has attacked first, then it would be a lot more acceptable to attack back, but maybe still not necessary to get down into the off-topicness of person rather than substance.
I know that sometimes I will attack others.. but my own rendition of those situations is that in my head I have concluded that they have attacked first, and maybe I had already given them sufficient chances on the discussion of the substance (or we have a prior relation).. Anyhow I believe that I mostly will only attack after I feel that I have been attacked first and after a certain amount of attempts at addressing the topic..but I do understand and appreciate that there are some arguments and discussion topics that are not real and genuine talking points.. so in that regard sometimes there might be some instances in which I had determined that a pre-emptive attack might come in useful, even though I do not consider myself to have such a habit,.... at least not regularly.. but I could see how sometimes preemptive attack can be useful... sometimes. perhaps?..