Posters were being shitty so he left for a year. Curious if he'll return, never had an issue with him.
There's a fine line between throwing a little banter and being a shithead, and unfortunately Americans, for the most part, don't speak the language. Our tourism boards will actually warn Americans not to attempt it while on holiday here because they tend to misunderstand how it works and get genuinely shitty/mean or offended, which just sucks the fun out of it all.
I'm not really sure why good banter never made it to the States to be honest, Canadians got it down (think hockey chirping), Aussies are pretty good at it, same with most of Europe. The subtle art of slagging just never seemed to stick in the States.
For the record, most posters on ROD are actually pretty decent at it. Even in his final thread, there's some great ones (you're room temperature coffee is a good example), but there's some eh ones, and of course he took a few things wrong, and that's where it all goes to hell.