Sure. OK. You're technically correct.
It's just hard liking stuff on the internet these days. Once upon a time (man I sound old!) the internet was all people enjoying their shared interests. Now it's the exact opposite of that thing and nobody is allowed to like anything. I haven't been allowed to enjoy a shared positive conversation about stuff I like for over a decade. Here. Facebook. Twitter. Anywhere. You get shouted down everywhere.
I know. That's my problem.
It is the problem of many. Up to my twenties, when I would role-play with friends, or go to the occasional convention, or what have you, it was enthusiasm for fantasy, science fiction, mythology, comic books, and so forth that dominated. People had different opinions and it was fun to talk about this stuff, hear the different opinions, but enthusiasm dominated.
In forums online, it seems like the enthusiasm must be there...it is hard to imagine it being anything but the motivation that brings people to places like right here. Yet, once the conversation online gets started, so often there are wet blankets or people who want to prove they are right at the expense of others. It is a story repeated ad infinitum across the Web. It is discouraging because, like a wet blanket, it stifles my enthusiasm and desire to even participate online.
I think it is a problem intrinsic to a media where we are anonymous and not physically present with one another and able to read one another's non-verbal cues. I see this whether it is forums on music, role-playing games, or even religion where participants aspire to love and forgive each other yet their anonymous online communications with one another online can be rife with the omnipresent online impulse to
have to win an argument, meanness, and sometimes name-calling.
My reaction has been to adopt, years ago, a "only participate with the positive" approach to these kinds of online forums. When someone responds with something negative, I just try to emphasize what might be positive in the post or I simply do not respond. In my non-online-hobby life I have to problem solve and work through personal relations issues, but for my online hobby I have found trying to give up the natural instinct to "win" every argument helps me. Also, realizing that if I don't have anything positive to write, I can simply not respond has helped me. But, over time, my interest in participating online has dwindled as a consequence.