1. Many of the little quips are overused, to the point where some people find it irritating to read Scout jokes. They are no longer funny because they are overused.
No, they are funny precisely because they are "overused". They're parts of the board culture and while the culture is supposed to evolve over time, it comes mostly in the form of inclusion of new in-jokes. Old in-jokes die when they cease to be in-jokes, but that really doesn't happen very often when the community is like this.
2. Many of the little quips are about being pedantic, which can often have some uncomfortable effects. These effects include personal offense being taken by someone who was quoted out of context or whose words are being misunderstood and being made light of; and also they can sort of look like they're on-topic but can begin to move the discussion in a direction that can either be very far from what the OP really wanted to talk about, or worse, onto something not related to Dominion at all. So one post goes partially off-topic, and the next one goes even more, and 5 posts later in this chain we're talking about something completely unrelated.
Some would say that if the OP is upset about a change in topic or takes personal offense where none was intended that "lol this is the internet, just get used to it or gtfo, don't be so sensitive." I realize I may be in the minority in saying this, and my argument here isn't the most compelling thing ever, but here it is: Really? Are you serious? What the H? Is that really the image you want this community to give off? Especially in someone's first thread, when we can't respect what they ask for? Yeah this is the internet but jeez, have some decency. At least try and to be open-minded enough to realize that not everyone shares the "dwi or gtfo" mentality and maybe we would be a more welcoming place if we didn't end up doing that to people who are new here?
Most newbies have no problems with the community as far as I can tell. The other option is having strict moderation, and strict moderation needs rules to be in place, and rules are the exact opposite of welcoming because nobody ever bothers to read them and then they post something which is technically not allowed and get warned by a moderator or banned or something.
3. The quips are not evenly peppered in, they come in deluges of 5-10 posts made in like an hour's time. This is significant because after one of these little tangents, it's harder for someone to come in and read that and just go back to talking about Dominion. It's even harder when they do so only to have their posts nitpicked by even more posts that are off-topic. It's even harder when the short posts where little thought went into them are rewarded by +1s while the posts that someone spent a while thinking about and had thought and *gasp* actual Dominion insight or questions don't get nearly the same treatment. I spent 15 minutes typing up something I think is thoughtful and I see 5 one-liners were posted while I was typing that have completely changed the subject, now I feel weird making my post and even weirder when it vanishes in a sea of getting made fun of or indifference to all of our lovely quips! Quips are so great!
It's not at all harder to come in and go back to talking about Dominion. Just click on the "Post Reply" button, type your post in the biggest of the text fields and click the "Post" button when you're done, just like you would when everyone is already talking about Dominion. It's not an IRL conversation so it doesn't have to flow like one.
4. The number of these posts is greater than 1/5 of X. I don't know what the number in this thread was, and I don't know what the right number is, but suffice it to say that the people who think similarly to what I'm describing wish they were less in number than what they are. Maybe zero isn't the perfect number for Y, but golly gee it's probably less than what it is now; enough so that it's not taking more value away from these people than the quippers could possibly be getting.
I'm rather comfortable with the 475+/500 that's pretty typical of threads on /a/.
Even if you don't agree with these, can you at least understand why someone out there could feel like the quips are taking away from the discussion at hand? If you at least recognize that someone out there could possibly feel differently than you do, then is it too much to ask to respect that person's wishes when they ask for the quips and nitpicks to stop?
The answer I've seen from this community so far has been "yes, that is too much to ask." I will refer to my previously mentioned "Really? Are you serious? What the H? Is that really the image you want this community to give off?" argument.
No, it is certainly beyond my comprehension why someone feels like anything added to the discussion takes something away from it. That's seems a lot like a contradiction to me.
And yes, it is obviously too much to ask. I don't usually read long Dominion related posts because they're tl;dr, do you not feel that it would be too much to ask to respect my wishes if I asked for the long Dominion related posting to stop?