Oh come on. You see it, too. I can't recall anyone defending the forum on the grounds of it being really friendly and welcoming, for example. The best anyone posted was that it's less aweful than some other forums for some other games.
I enjoy them. As with any group of people that's sufficiently large, there is going to be disagreement. That is inevitable. But I do not accept the argument that the forum is so bad that it merits being shut down.
I know you have other reasons (which I also disagree with), but I simply do not see the forum in general or the Local board specifically as an overly hostile place. The Local board features a bunch of passionate people discussing their favorite realms and islands. People are naturally going to have opposing viewpoints and disagree on many things, often stridently, but I think that the number of times that disagreements turn truly hostile in a personal sense is very limited in comparison to the total volume of posting going on, and is something that can be addressed easily enough by stricter moderation.
