These gatekeepers with fantasies about their special capacity to ward others off from participating... it's kinda fashy.
Most participants left after your refusal to answer questions they asked. At this point all that's left is you quarreling with fascists.
But go ahead and blame all your woes on a recovering StackOverflow addict 
You meanie! I wasn't addicted to StackOverflow, I am addicted to solving problems.
As to this thread, the Ignore list is a facility you find in your own Profile > Summary page, Modify Profile > Buddies/Ignore list > Edit Ignore List. When you put member names there, you no longer see their posts, just a "You are ignoring this user." text in place of their post. This lets you continue participating in the thread, while comfortably ignoring posts by member(s) you cannot usefully interact with. You do see quotes by others, though, like the one above.
The only reason I mention when I add someone like mapleLC to my ignore list, is so that anyone reading the thread afterwards knows why I do not respond to that member even if they ask a direct question or post a comment to mine. There is no intention of advising others to do the same, at all.
(In comparison, when someone detaches themselves from a thread, they usually use language like "I'm out" or similar.)
As far as I have seen, other members use it in the same manner.
Besides, I am known for being direct/confrontrational/grumpy (as well as overly verbose,
but still always trying to help) here.
Nobody "follows my lead" on ignoring others. Just ask magic: we often argue about things and disagree, occasionally agree, but I still love to see his contributions here. Not because of who or what I think magic is, but because I find their posts informative, and interaction mutually useful.
The only thing I value more than a good fact-based argument that yields possibilities for (myself, and others) learning new stuff, is when experienced members help others.
The thing with true help is that it is not personal. We do not respond to you to help
just you.
When public, either forums or mailing lists, there is always the expectation that others have or will have a similar problem, so it pays best for everybody to examine the problem and solve it in a manner that allows solving all similar related problems. It is the same thing as in free/open source projects, where being an "user" has zero value, and to get the developers to fix something or add a feature, the "user" has to show their willingness to spend time and effort to help the solve the problem. That changes one from an "user" to a "contributor", you see. It is that time and effort that is the currency; here also.
Things like reporting back after getting suggestions, describing what choices they made afterwards, and the results, even in just a couple of sentences, is not just a courtesy, it is a requirement for continued mutually beneficial interaction.
mapleLC, you're not being ignored because there is a clique here that has decided to dislike you. There are only individual members who dislike the way you approach this forum and express yourself. It isn't personal, though, at all; if you just change the way you communicate a bit, you'll fit in just fine, and nobody will ignore you. After all, nobody knows anything about "mapleLC" except what they have posted, and while changing ones own personality is not possible, adjusting ones own way of communicating with others is something that everybody does, unless they become a hermit.
For one, Dave doesn't tolerate such social cliques, you see. But more importantly, we're here to talk tech: engineering, science, experience; not social stuff.
If you are a technical as opposed to social person, I suggest you go and look at some Beginners or Projects threads, where new members have successfully been helped by some of the experienced members here, like say David Hess. (They are an excellent example because of their friendly and concise manner of helping, but they will ignore threads where the asker/original poster does not show the abovementioned reciprocality first, and instead will just demand a solution.) Compare how those threads go, to this thread, and you'll see where you shot yourself in the foot.
Fortunately, nobody cares for long –– I myself purge my ignore list every month or two ––, so if you just adjust your wordage/tone/approach, you'll immediately see a change in responses.
Remember, showing your own attempts first, and showing that you are willing to spend time and effort yourself to solve the problem you are asking for help with, is the most important thing: much more than being "courteous" or "humble" or anything like that. It is easily experimentally verified, if you don't believe it.
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