I can imagine that for a WotC employee, now isn't the best time to be on the web. They're getting treated like dirt, and for most of them it's for a decision their boss or coworker made.
However, I can't blame fans for being furious. Dragon Magazine had a lot of nostalgia and love from the gamer community associated with it. It was one thing that brought together D&D players of all eras. Not every gamer is on the web, believe it or not (at least half the ones I know don't visit gaming sites or boards even if they are on the web), Dragon Magazine was something that reached across the generations of gaming, something a website can never do.
One gamer I know, probably one of the most calm, level headed people most of the time, has been subscribing to Dragon for about 20 years (since he first got into D&D in Junior High), and has a complete collection of the magazine from around issue 118 to present. When he heard about this on a mailing list we're both on, his short reply included the phrase "I wonder if they'll have somebody at Gen Con I can punch". This from someone who is normally the most calm and reasonable person I know and in the almost ten years I've known him one of only two times I can think of him even talking of violence (the other involved when a friend was murdered).
Offline and away from message boards, people I didn't even know read Dragon are upset, because they might not subscribe, but they used to and they might still pick up the occasional issue at their FLGS, and now one of the constants of the D&D world will be gone. There had always been Dragon, I think D&D players expected that whatever form D&D took in the future, there would always be a Dragon Magazine in print they could buy at their FLGS or have delivered in the mail.
This hasn't just touched a nerve in the D&D community, it's cut off an arm. We're hearing nothing from WotC for a long time except how great D&D is doing and how this year is better than ever, then suddenly a 30+ year D&D tradition is gone. . .that's going to shock people.
I really doubt there is little that WotC could have done to anger their fans more, aside from ceasing production of D&D altogether or moving to a 4e that would be a boardgame or collectible RPG or something far afield from conventional RPG's.
However, ENWorld does try for a very high level of civility, and is under normal circumstances the most polite and friendliest message boards I know of on the web (one reason I post here more than any other board), so I can see how people speaking their uncensored mind here is going to create issues, because a lot of normally civil and polite people have some very uncivil and impolite things they'd like to say.
). Hats off to the mods here for all their hard work.
