The short version:

It's like walking into a library, hearing absolute, blissful silence, and shouting, "WOW! THIS IS FANTASTIC! I CAN'T BELIEVE HOW GLORIOUSLY SILENT IT IS, YOU KNOW, WITHOUT THE CARS, AND THE YELLING, AND THE TELEVISIONS BLARING PORNOGRAPHY AND WOW THIS IS SO COOL I CAN ACTUALLY HEAR MYSELF THINK LIBRARIES ARE LEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEET!" and wondering why people get annoyed...

Slightly longer, but still rude :-)

My point from the beginning was that filters, though personally useful, have this unintended side effect of promoting a culture of conspicuous outrage towards purity, with people "desperately" crusading against the Dark One's "best efforts" to ruin The Group.

I mean, maybe it's this cosmic balance thing; for every byte saved through the filters, one must be lost to overriding snobbery. I mean, look at your post, man. Jon Katz? Dead Horse? Two years since he posted last? Hello?

Chris, I'm sorry. I'm sure you're a nice guy, who has very nice and well thought out reasons to evangelize how his browsing is "so much more enjoyable" than the plebian Windows' users Xeni-tainted experience. I'm sure you sincerely believe that, if not for this grand new anti-Xeni filter, readers will genuinely "slowly wander away until Cory closes it down". And I'm glad you have the intestinal fortitude to stand up for your rights -- we need more people like that in this country!

The question is not whether any of this is good or bad. My point is simply that filters spawn promiscuous filtering, i.e. people can't shut up about it.

--Dan