I find it absurd how this user was treated. This user asked an honest question on a sport he wasn't familiar with (so, call it "too basic" of a question), and it got slammed. I even got slammed for answering (because I'm encouraging low quality questions or something to that effect). The be nice page states...

..."Be welcoming and patient, especially with those who may not know everything you do." Were we welcoming? No. Were we patient? No. I disagree with how question quality took priority over being nice in this question. Sure, if it's an ongoing pattern, but it was this user's first...

...question on this site for crying out loud. In this question, we were told to go easy on the downvotes...and it has mostly remained unscathed. How that user got that kind of welcoming and patient treatment and this user didn't is beyond me. The quality is comparable (not familiar with sport, "reasonable to expect they will have at least read the rules", "basic" question), so quality isn't the topic here. It's being nice over quality.

My final words on the matter: I think it's clear that the two questions I reference are night and day when compared to how each question was received. That's my opinion, and I know others disagree with me, but if we're going to be inconsistent on the matter...then all I ask is to consider being nice. There's no reason to make a user feel like s/he isn't worth our time because s/he asked a "low quality" question. Our main goal should be to help and guide users in whatever way necessary.

On a vastly different note, each team in the top 4 of the CFP rankings who played a conference championship game this weekend won. This most likely means the 4 teams in the CFP are Alabama, Ohio State, Clemson, and Washington.