These bits in Meg's original post rang as closest to a definition for the boards in my ear:
Quote
What douchebaggery means to me is someone who is an ass and doesn't contribute. Their sense of self worth is overinflated.
....Douchebaggery is damaging to the community, not just an individual.
My problem with that, while I generally agree...damaging an individual is damaging a (small, yes) part of the community.
Directly and indirectly. For instance, take someone attacking me (I can't speak for how others spread the word of sites they find interesting, so I'm using my responses as a sign of what one individual in this community does).
You attack me. You make it highly unpleasant for me to post on something because whether or not I have anything useful to say you act like a dick and/or treat my idea as shit...not just say "this isn't all that good an idea" and show how, but treat it as if having such an idea to begin with is awful.
When people do that, not only does it make me contribute less (which is not good in an environment where supposedly sharing ideas is to be fostered), it makes me much less likely to mention this site either in general (hey you might want to check this out since you're into D&D/GURPS/Gaming/whatever) or for specific points (because it means that only things that interest those interested in being bullies survive without being mercilessly mocked into oblivion) that someone who may or may not want to join the site may still want to see.
So I'd say that being a douchebag, as distinct from simply arrogant or even offensive, is when you are actively hindering the purpose and pleasures of this site by your actions. Instead of encouraging people to share ideas (and simply not commenting on ones that hold no appeal), you try to drive off people.
Not because they're being unpleasant, but because you don't like/respect them.
"Not appealing" does not and should not mean "I desire to have them remvoed". Otherwise, we'd have a site where only people who play the kind of game/s that Meg and the others play posting and having a private club, rather than an open discussison of ideas.