@Dewg: Call me overly paranoid, but there are very definitely trolls on this forum.
Sometimes trolls are trolls because they enjoy yanking peoples' chains. Sometimes trolls are trolls because they really are curmudgeons and really do think that the glasses are half empty.
TMC does have moderators that kick out the truly obvious. But the line between someone simply claiming that they've got an opinion and someone trying hard to do their worst without getting booted can be a fine one, indeed.
And.. Before I came to inhabit the TMC, I used to hang out on Tesla's forums, before they were closed down. Tesla didn't really moderate their forums. No question: There were short-sellers showing up there posting fake threads about how Tesla was going Bankwrupt on a regular basis. There were anti-EV specialists who, after a bit of research, were found to be posting diatribes against Ford EVs as well as Tesla EVs. Worse, these types would run in packs, posting back and forth to each other.
The absolute worst, in my opinion, were ones who would respond to newbie questions with actual good advice; then, once having got their feet in the door, so to speak, would commence to put out bad advice meant to malign the newbie's choice, cause trouble with unnecessary service calls to Tesla, and so on. And this wasn't a one-time only good deal; they did this over and over and over..
From a thousand-foot view, what these types appeared to be up to was pretty clear. Tesla doesn't advertise, but there's a ton of social media engagement between real users on forums like the TMC forum and, at the time, Tesla's forums which serves much the same purpose for the curious. It was thought at the time, without much in the way of proof, mind you, that many of these trollish entities were paid for their disruption efforts. The triumvirate purported to pay for this activity would be other, traditional auto companies; Big Oil; and short-sellers. And it was thought at the time that
short sellers were being funded by Big Oil, seeing as the shorties were losing billions of dollars a year trying to claim that Tesla was going under Any Minute Now.
It wasn't just denizens of random internet forums that thought this was happening. Another example would be Sandy Munroe who called out this activity as a real possibility, although he was pointing at Big Oil as the cause. You guys do know that Big Oil was, and has been, funding climate deniers since the mid 1950's, right?
There's not much one can do about this; in a way, that's the moderators' jobs. But, partly because of that Tesla Forums crash and burn, I'm sensitive to forum participants who seem to be 95% negative at All Times on Things Tesla. Or whose reports clash badly with personal experience. Or (and this does happen) with members who claim that they've got Car A on one day, then Car B on a third day, and so on. Or somebody who shows up on the Beta forums.. but then, after a lot of negativity and what seems to be personal experience, admits that they're not actually driving the Beta.
Like I said: trolls. Or worse. Be cautious.
