Some people get really intense over surfing, luckily where I surf there's not too many people, and even less angry people. That's part of whats cool about surfing. If you're out with a bunch of nice people it's fun, and if theres some idiot out there who's doing something very wrong people speak up.
And skateboarding is kinda like that. If you show up to a park to skate a nice mini ramp, as I often do, and there like 3 little kids who constantly go and do no tricks it's not cool. Usually a well versed group of skaters will give everybody a turn, and you you mess up on your first or second trick you'll probably get another run. At least where I skate that's how it is. And I don't even know most of the others there. I usually give people that second chance. And usually everybody is cool if you just loose your board but just jump back on and start skating again.
And at my local hill (mountain creek) it's more like 300 snowboarders stop before everything, but nobody intends to hit it, so you just stop, get through them and then go. Or it's a never ending snowboard train where you'll never get a turn, and following them is a bad idea cause you're guaranteed a several person pile up. So if you stop and try to be nice, about 80 people go at the same time. Which is what I don't get. I'll slide up, look around, ask if anybody is going, and if not go. If there's boaders starting to stand up to go I let them go cause they were there first. But nobody will ever let you go if you're nice and let others go.