There are other UK fan spaces (reddit, discord, WCN forums) and people there aren't, generally, any more optimistic about Pope than people here. But this place is uniquely juvenile and uniquely toxic. Lots of people here are committed to being miserable every moment of every day, reminding you you should be miserable every moment of every day, and are very quick to start schoolyard fights. You can't have a discussion about anything without multiple people immediately redirecting to their axe to grind. There used to be a taboo against "agenda posting" on the internet but that's a long gone norm. Used to be a taboo against "flame wars" on the internet but this often feels more like a flame-war forum than a UK sports forum.
It's not "welcome to the internet." It's not "the program is in bad shape." It's the people here, and a years-long development of an awful culture here ("here" being Rupp Rafters, I can't speak for the other spaces that got merged in here). There's plenty of trolls and plenty of, frankly, mentally ill people who apparently devote a massive fraction of their lives to creating account after account to have the same fights over and over and over. There are tons of people here who just aren't interested in conversation or nuance, only at screaming their thoughts into the void and making an enemy of anyone who doesn't think exactly as they do. "Disagree with me on ANY portion of what I said? I'm gonna ignore what you say and call you names." Hell I literally saw a poster "joking" about shooting other people over a fight on here. Many of the more reasonable people seem to have been run off as the place spirals into greater and greater toxicity. I'm not sure what the answer is because if you ban people they just make another account and show up again, and the leadership/ownership seems to have given up on trying and there just isn't enough of a moderator presence to even try to control it - it would take people being on here monitoring constantly and even then I don't know how you could control it.
It's not "welcome to the internet." It's not "the program is in bad shape." It's the people here, and a years-long development of an awful culture here ("here" being Rupp Rafters, I can't speak for the other spaces that got merged in here). There's plenty of trolls and plenty of, frankly, mentally ill people who apparently devote a massive fraction of their lives to creating account after account to have the same fights over and over and over. There are tons of people here who just aren't interested in conversation or nuance, only at screaming their thoughts into the void and making an enemy of anyone who doesn't think exactly as they do. "Disagree with me on ANY portion of what I said? I'm gonna ignore what you say and call you names." Hell I literally saw a poster "joking" about shooting other people over a fight on here. Many of the more reasonable people seem to have been run off as the place spirals into greater and greater toxicity. I'm not sure what the answer is because if you ban people they just make another account and show up again, and the leadership/ownership seems to have given up on trying and there just isn't enough of a moderator presence to even try to control it - it would take people being on here monitoring constantly and even then I don't know how you could control it.
