Do you think it's possible to complain... ....about a resort and not get blasted by a bunch of people and probably have the thread locked at some point?... It invariably ends withl the OP feeling like crap and wishing he'd never posted!!
Think that could ever change!!??
When I have a bad experience, I relay it honestly and in its proper perspective: "I went to XXX and didn't enjoy it, because YYY happened, and I didn't feel that that was what I was promised." By restricting the review to what happened to me, and how I felt about it, there is no quandary for folks who had a different experience, or felt differently about their experience. People do have different experiences; people do value things differently, have different preferences, and perceive things differently, so there is nothing remarkable about the fact that I experienced one thing and someone else experienced something else.
I think where some folks get into doo-doo is when they react negatively to someone else relaying their own contradictory experience, or their own contradictory perception -- as if someone else experiencing something different or perceiving something differently somehow reduces the validity of one's own experience or perception! The Internet is
not a safe place to expect an unrebutted soap-box!
I think the way the thread ultimately goes, depends on the words of the OP. They set the tone for whether they are viewed as posting a complaint or sounding like a whiner.
I agree that tone has some bearing, but it is also a matter of foundation. I often seen complaints that are based on unfounded expectations. Rarely have I seen a complaint where someone experienced something radically different from what they were explicitly promised by Disney itself. Often we see someone expecting something because they want to expect it, or because a friend led them to believe they could expect it, or because they had a very special experience last time and now expect that every time, etc.
Beyond complaints based on unfounded expectations, we do see a good bit of buyers remorse. WDW is incredibly expensive, and folks often restrict their consideration of what they're getting for that high price to just the service they receive, without factoring-in the extent to which the price reflects superlative demand, especially demand to to the superlative location of the resorts. That disconnect ends up being the source of a lot of misdirected dissatisfaction.
At times I 've stopped because it's no longer fun when people disagree
Me too. With notable exception, I tend to unsubscribe from a thread after the third or fourth page, even if it isn't getting heated. I figure that all the interesting things said in a thread are typically in the first few pages. Works for me.
There are a lot of people here at the DIS who worship at the Church of Disney and see any criticism as blasphemy.
Oh yeah... there's also a problem with some folks using highly-emotionalized loaded language to communicate their feelings.
That's a pretty good way to start a flame-fest.
There are some people that legitimately had a bad experience and there are others who would have never been satisfied.
Definitely. I know some folks who not only would never be satisifed, but are only happy when they have something to complaint about!
So you are saying no one should complain here?
On the contrary, I believe Laurajean was advocating that folks should complain while
there at the hotel. I think Laurajean's point was that complaining about something without giving the hotel a chance to make it good at the time you received the bad service seems contradictory: Why would someone want to remain dissatisfied so much that they'd keep their dissatisfaction a secret until it was too late for the hotel to satisfy that someone? (Unless, of course, that someone is one of those people who is only happen when s/he has something to complain about!
)
There are new folks checking out these boards every day. Silence implies assent. This is a community, member should be expected to conscientiously contribute to the community -- not just sit back and let incomplete or inaccurate information fester.
My experience here mostly lurking is that *critiques* don't get flamed, *complaints* often do. There is a difference between offering up your experiences, as one person's experience and offering actual incidents to support your opinion and those posts which offer broad brush "this was the worst blah, blah, blah, blah" with little or no actual information or information that is grossly out of step with the level of ire in the post.
This is a wonderful summary, bellarella. I think you hit the nail on the head.
I tend to think that many people get too stressed out about making this the "perfect" vacation instead of just enjoying being there. 
But you know what? From reading these boards, I knew enough to request a building CLOSE to OPR, rather than further away, especially since at that time my younger DS was just off crutches from a chronic hip problem he has. 
