Plus these forums are laggy and broken, so that tends to keep away the people who just want to shit post constantly to get the dopamine rush.
Dammit! Our cunning plan has been rumbled! (If only
).
Seriously, though, I think the trouble is that it only takes a relatively small number of people who just want to share their own opinions and don't want constructive debate, and are okay with upsetting and offending others, to make an online space feel hostile to hundreds if not thousands of people. And as Steam is a hell of a lot busier than here, even if the proportions of anti-social posters aren't greater, it can feel a lot worse. I don't often check Steam, but when I do see people post toxic stuff there I also often see plenty of good challenge to them from other users, but unfortunately that doesn't remove the bad taste from having read it in the first place.
Unless the forums completely keel over and die (which frankly I'm not ruling out as they've been so temperamental lately) we can expect it to get busier here around the release of the game, and I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't nervous that we'll see more unpleasant stuff pop up here as well, in addition to the new contributors with different and interesting perspectives that I'm looking forward to. But we might have to fight harder than usual to keep our small, quiet backwater of the internet civil and safe for everyone.
So I'll just put in my moderator plug and say that part of that is not being shy about PM-ing me or reporting posts that you think cross the line. There is no need to suffer in silence, and even if I end up not agreeing that a post is bad enough to warrant moderator action it helps me hugely to understand how people are feeling and reacting to posts, even when (often quite rightly) they're not publicly engaging with them.
