Not taking sides here but I've alluded in my introduction thread that I was a former Mod of a forum I was a member of for 8 years. 9 if I stayed til Jan 017. So I just want to share an experience.
The weird thing about being a Mod was that I got to see people's '' antics '' Their '' edits '' and what not. So the words you used , passive aggressive , ring so true. It was a sports forum so there was a lot of language, sexism , abuse, and of course, naturally...Tribalism. Now remember iI was wading through that trite every day before I even knew I was an INFJ, I'm sure you could imagine how ....lonely ? maybe the wrong word, but there was a level of isolation that made me question my own views/standards.
You are right in what you say about people who don't care about forums. If only they knew how much time and money and commitment a place of this size and quality requires they'd maybe appreciate it more. At least that's what I always felt in my old place.
I always found it weird how the more vocal members who said '' It's an adult forum '' would have the hardest time behaving like one. People creating two accounts and then starting full on flame wars with each other simply to cause drama and conflict as well as division. People posting full on pornography and what not.
The final straw was when someone posted a video of a drunken man taking an actual dump in the middle of the road in broad daylight. Freespeech is another one that simply gets translated as '' free for all ''.
I could tell you stories about the biggest troll on the forum who would mock members with potentially fatal illnesses turning up on shall we say....let's just go with.. dodgy website. Or the user who got banned and returned under a different name and tried to guilt trip everyone by pretending to be a friend of the recently banned, and announcing his death.. ( which was due to someone cutting the break cables on his car apparently ) Or the guy who would constantly post about how wealthy he was and how he was posting from all sorts of exotic locations, and even saying he was in Milan or Madrid catching a game on the fly before returning home to his big mansion..He;d continually mock other members for their apparent lack of wealth, When his account information showed that he never left his own post code nevermind country.
It's amazing how much effort people will put into making a place chaotic and disorderly, but if they are asked to put in a bit of time and thought then it's '' oppressive ''
But like I say, this is just what I experienced in my 8 years in the other place. I'm very grateful for having found this forum and have been impressed with the hospitality shown by the members. But as for the lack of traffic, oddly enough it was one of my last conversations with my Admin team. I think all forums are losing traffic or levelling out at a low constant. So I don't see it as being a INFJs thing.. Plus with INFJ's seemingly making up only 1% of the world it was never likely to become a gobal sensation, numbers wise.
Anyways, I apologise for the rant and again , not taking sides but sometime the persepctive of someone who has only recently just came in from the outside is a decent indicator.
I think the members and the staff have done well and should be proud of their efforts.
In fact, here's a round of applause for ya'll from me.
