Different forums have different styles and different cultures. This creates positives and negatives. I hang out in multiple forums as a result, including this one. Mostly I hang out here and in the WotC forums.
The positive of ENWorld compared to WotC is a better signal to noise ratio in the comments. There are a lot of threads on WotC where three or four people are having an intelligent conversation intermixed with the posts of a dozen trolls, a dozen troll slayers, a dozen confused people who completely fail to understand the issue, and a dozen people correcting them. That happens here as well but in a much better ratio.
The negative of ENWorld is that the moderators have decided to tolerate a certain degree and style of trolling rather than incur the costs of rooting it out. On WotC a troll will be castigated and burned at the stake by the community. Here the people who castigate the troll will be disciplined as much or more than the troll, if the troll is smart enough to do his job well and avoid the cardinal rules of ENWorld- don't use bad words, and don't directly cast aspersions on others. Use clean language, and cast aspersions around them. When some of your aspersions happen to fall onto the person you were targeting, claim you had no idea that would happen. If they get angry and use bad words or cast aspersions back at you, report them.
While I am criticizing it, it is a legitimate tradeoff. The question is basically between tolerating flamewars as if they were a form of white blood cell response to disease, or eliminating flamewars by tolerating a certain amount of rot.
Each has advantages and disadvantages, and at times each drives me crazy, so I can't stay in only one place.
The positive of ENWorld compared to WotC is a better signal to noise ratio in the comments. There are a lot of threads on WotC where three or four people are having an intelligent conversation intermixed with the posts of a dozen trolls, a dozen troll slayers, a dozen confused people who completely fail to understand the issue, and a dozen people correcting them. That happens here as well but in a much better ratio.
The negative of ENWorld is that the moderators have decided to tolerate a certain degree and style of trolling rather than incur the costs of rooting it out. On WotC a troll will be castigated and burned at the stake by the community. Here the people who castigate the troll will be disciplined as much or more than the troll, if the troll is smart enough to do his job well and avoid the cardinal rules of ENWorld- don't use bad words, and don't directly cast aspersions on others. Use clean language, and cast aspersions around them. When some of your aspersions happen to fall onto the person you were targeting, claim you had no idea that would happen. If they get angry and use bad words or cast aspersions back at you, report them.
While I am criticizing it, it is a legitimate tradeoff. The question is basically between tolerating flamewars as if they were a form of white blood cell response to disease, or eliminating flamewars by tolerating a certain amount of rot.
Each has advantages and disadvantages, and at times each drives me crazy, so I can't stay in only one place.
