Mach Front wrote:I've been posting at DF for years. Never had a problem, and I've never seen anything get too out of hand. I would say it has the same percentage of "immature turds" as any other forum inevitably has. Surely I'm not one of them, though.
Surely.
I think it has a lot to do with how long a forum has been going as well. The bigger it is and the more established the "old" membership the "snarckier" they can tend to get. In particular, grudges can develop and be held for a long time, especially during transitional periods. The two biggest blips on the radar for
Dragonsfoot are the release of D20/3e and OSRIC, both of which were times when
Dragonsfoot had to make a decision about its identity. To a lesser degree the inclusion of Classic and Second Edition at the "Home of First Edition" rankled with some long time posters there. However, its sheer size, its publication record, and as an avenue of access to ex-TSR employees, including Gary Gygax until his death, makes it a website unsurpassed in usefulness to anybody interested in TSR era
Dungeons & Dragons and efforts to support it going forward. More specialised forums, such as those for OSRIC/First Edition,
Swords & Wizardry/OD&D and
Labyrinth Lord/Classic are also necessary and should be encouraged. This one has certainly been the most polite and friendly in years gone by, perhaps partly because relatively free of those earlier "teething" controversies, but certainly because the membership is relatively free of disruptive individuals, and it only takes one bad apple to spoil the cart, as they say (and being a moderator at
Dragonsfoot, I can vouch for this being true of forums, to some degree).