I see a pretty marked difference between MSB and WORA.
People still argue here, and play devil's advocate plenty -- but rarely is there the constant trolling amongst regular posters occur that was fairly prevalent on WORA (in all of its incarnations) and SWOFA that made it nigh impossible to actually have a productive discussion about anything.
Many games never even make it on the radar here, but the ones that do, one way or another, tend to have their dirty laundry aired if there actually are soiled knickers scattered about the joint. It's entirely possible that the games no one ever mentions here have plenty that reekingly remain, but if there's something sketchy going on, it will often come to light here.
That's both good and bad. I think some of the worst breed of staffers are less likely to attempt to get away with shady garbage because of the fear of exposure. Fortunately, that means that the old-school worst abuses are much more rare today than they once were.
Unfortunately, that means that a lot of minor stuff, or stuff people just worry that maybe it could happen (not even could be happening but just could happen) gets elevated to the same level of hysteria that would erupt over things like staff banning somebody for turning them down for TS, or a staffer setting their husband's PC's stats to godlike levels for no reason, and so on. The closest I think we've seen to the kind of old-school horrors that raised the alarm are Elsa's email stalker campaign with channel meltdowns and Spider's illustrious career on TR and FC.
Even suspicion seems to be enough to condemn someone lately, and I'm not so sure I'm keen on that. Considering most people are aware of this, ironically enough it makes it a lot harder to find quality staffers, because you have folks now terrified to make even the slightest innocent minor and easily remedied mistake lest they be crucified as an eater of babies and kitten rapist -- and doing the damage control (which almost never works anyway) required to even attempt to correct the impression is enormously time-consuming, and usually futile.
That worries me. It can't not worry me, because in that way I see that there's real damage being done to the hobby. There's so much talent here in this community, but plenty of people are (quite understandably) not at all willing to do things because it's like painting a target on their face, ass, and heart all at once.
Do I think this is balanced out by the ability to impartially review ideas and concepts, or call out real major abuses and the like? Yeah. I do think the over-reaction stuff needs to slow its roll some, however, for this place to be as productive as it could be.
