I quite enjoyed the wild speculations of local forums; the "Thalmarkin will totally crush Melhed because vikings and I play in BoM". The problematic part comes when facts are distinguishable, and players recieve information of things they should not, affecting character play. Some people will heed a course of destruction even if they hear from an outside source their risk will not pay off, some will not. It is definately hard not to let such affect your decision making even though our characters are just, well, characters.
I am unsure if a gentlemen's agreement to avoid posting about your own realm, or things you know about, would work, or if the local channel would even make sense with such a restriction. I would, however, like for there to be a place where I can keep guessing on how much money Darka actually has, and recieve an echo of "oh my god it is still totally !@#$tons fo sho".
I post here quite scarceley (0.04/day), and as such have not been involved (to my knowing) in any of the "negative atmosphere" of the forums. I am guessing much of it is just a few competitive people enjoying arguing and using some less empathic methods of sarcasm and such to prove a point without any real personal malice (or belief in being correct). I am undecided on if this is an issue, but I doubt it will be restricted to locals, as I doubt it really spawns from any OOC/IC mix up. Neither do I think it often reveals crucial information.
