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Originally Posted by [HLF]Southclaw I think there's a lot going on here, and since you wrote a rather large post I'll break it down with a hopefully friendly and dialectic response. So I've noticed what you pointed out here too. The quality of responses has dropped over the years. I don't think there's any intent of malice though. What has most likely happened is the experienced users are less active due to, y'know, growing up and getting jobs etc. Some may have just become less active as they focus on their servers and others may just lose interest. No one is obligated to stick around and help, but I'm sure you know this. I think the core of the issue here is expectations vs reality, with a mix of rose tinted glasses and a downright negative and cynical attitude to top it all off. Let's break it down: The past is usually more appealing than the present. That's not just some quote to make you feel bad about your opinions, it has some truth to it. Yes I know a lot of the original members have left and yes I know the quality of some of the content has dropped but at the same time, you have to look at it objectively and try to avoid those natural cognitive biases like the 'rose tinted glasses' effect. Instead of reminiscing about how great the past was, make an effort to bring up spirits for the present! Secondly, expectations. We all have them. We all have this world-view, this model, this way we describe what we experience. What the forums are to you is most likely very different to what they are to me. Some come here expecting help and some come here to just chat. Some want to help others, and sometimes those people expect that the people they help should act in a certain way. This is where problems arise because everyone has different expectations and world-views that they use to treat these issues. I'm not saying any of this is wrong, this is just people, but the best solution is to just be open minded and don't fall back to negativity when a thread starts to get a bit heated. And that brings me to my final point. Negativity multiplies, positivity adds. What I mean by that is the unfortunate effect of how negative discourse in a thread generally makes the thread spiral into chaos as members slowly up the ante post-by-post and it doesn't end well because by the end of it, no one is talking to anyone, they are just trying to throw the coolest insult or find some way to strawman the opposition's argument. This is not healthy debate. On the flipside to that, positivity doesn't multiply in this way which might have you thinking "what's the point in being positive then" well surely a small chance of gaining something is much better than a high chance of losing something? You may leave a pleasent comment 100 times and only one of those is appreciated and results in an uplifting thread but I'd argue that's a much better bet than leaving 100 cynical or negative comments only to find that 90% of those threads diverged into flame wars. I think you're well written, you're helpful and you've contributed quite a bit over the years. I just think your posts can often be a bit too on this negative side, contributing to a whirlpool of one-ups and pointless arguments. That's my 2 cents on the topic anyway, interpret it as you like.

A very well thought out reply. Good man.