People have been saying the same thing about the forum: that it's the cause of all this nastiness, that people feel free to flame other people, that before the forums, people were more polite.
I don't think either is true, and I don't think this is the place to discuss it.
If you want to discuss the role of different communications media in the BM community, go start another thread. Further posts on that topic on this thread will be deleted.