I just don't want to see the OP carelessly branded a hater or a troll. Neither of which I think is true.
He's simply nutjob.
If you type "what is a personal attack" into a popular search engine a couple of the the results you receive are:
"personal-attack. Noun. (plural personal attacks) Making of an abusive remark on or relating to one's person instead of providing evidence when examining another person's claims or comments."
"Personal attack may include challenges that question their intelligence, values, integrity, motivations, decisions and so on. "
Is he a "nutjob"? I'm not here to say one way or another. I see personal attacks of various kinds here much more than I would think is healthy for a forum that sometimes wants to aspire to dispassionate facts based debate.
If you read the forum rules you find this as the top two rules.
"I hate rules, but unfortunately we have to have some for this forum:
1) Play nice with the other nerds
2) No personal attacks. This is the biggest rule on this forum. If you don't follow it, you are not welcome here."
I don't say the rules are in any particular order because I'd have swapped these two.
One thing about an angry mob gathering ostensibly to defend Dave is that it takes control away from Dave to calmly reflect on whether the critic had a worthwhile point to make. In this particular case I don't think there was a valid point about the video that triggered the comments originally. But that has now become irrelevant.
There was clearly an undercurrent of dissatisfaction about something else and it precipitated a corresponding overreaction which hasn't been helpful to anyone. Except perhaps the actual
haters who benefit from watching the fireworks from the sidelines. And some of them could even be actively participating in these sort of debates camouflaged as fans and friends.
An enemy who attacks from the front cannot stab you in the back.