The bashing is more about not being honest.
Sure you can hide it online, but you can't hide it in person. It's blatantly obvious you're over weight. What makes you think deceiving a person online is going to make them stick around once they see you in person and realized you weren't being truthful? If they can't be honest about something like that, then how can you tell they're being honest the rest of the time?
I totally agree with what you are saying. Even though I'm overweight myself, I don't typically date overweight women. I'm pretty good at spotting whether a woman is overweight or not. But there are some people in this thread, and in other threads on this forum that continually bash overweight people in general. I don't take offense to it because I'm overweight, I'm my own worst critic. It takes a lot of courage for some of those people to put themselves out there, and they should be treated with respect and dignity just like any other person. Worst case scenario, just don't respond to their initial message if you even suspect that you might not be attracted to her. Usually nobody's feelings get hurt with that type of strategy.
I do notice some people try to hide the fact that they are overweight. Hell, even my profile pictures are old and i weigh much more than I do in the pictures. But I state in my about me section that I am overweight and if that's a problem then just move on. The main reason I dont put up a recent picture is because I'm only temporarily overweight. I got pretty sick over a year ago and put on a ton of weight pretty fast, then my last year of college just had me too busy to work out. But I'm healthy again and I'm back in the gym and dropping pounds left and right. I know this is off topic but I thought I'd share as I'm quite proud of myself. It also shows that not all fat people are completely lazy, sometimes there are circumstances as to why they are the way they are. I'm always battling with weight, I probably will the rest of my life.