johnnygoging: the forum was always, in many ways an extension of the philosophies that you see from the company that created it, a place that was a little freer, a little looser, than many others like it. certainly those others of an official and not entirely independent or unaffiliated nature. this was never historically a problem because though this atmosphere was not strictly controlled, the freedom and faith in the users generally produced a place where well-meaning and thoughtfulness won out and it more or less self-moderated. you'd always see stuff you might not in a moderated environment, but it always steered clear of harassment, personal attacks, disruptive behaviour, and generally anything that would have a negative effect. to be sure, there were politics, but they didn't sour the forum for lots of people. they existed, the forum existed, it wasn't a problem. then a few idiots showed up and started poisoning the place. with no stopgaps and less or no zero-tolerance policies for things that you'd normally find them for in those previously mentioned other places, combined with a certain amount of persistence for the idiocy from the idiots, the ph level of the forum started to change subtly until one day you started to see the veterans dropping like flies. that's pretty much what happened as far as I'm concerned. maybe it was inevitable that as gog gained greater awareness that something like this would happen, and maybe you see the ultimate solution as the implementation of a better rule framework. I'm not weighing in. I just wanted you to understand that it's not because the forum was fairly unregulated, it's because some people showed up and screwed it over.