That's one of the problems with casual lurking, if you catch snippets of people at their lowest ebb it can distort the impression of a place and the people in it.

Equally if I had popped in when everyone was having a great time I would have got a different and possibly equally distorted view.

I've been on here pretty much solidly since signing up so I hope I've now got a bit more of a balanced picture of things as they are now but there are still areas where I don't read or post much because of my particular interests.

I didn't say the forums were pure chaos before I arrived (not only would that suggest they were never fun back then but it also implies I personally had some talismanic influence over everything...clearly not the case).

I did say they were like that sometimes.

What I should have said (and I say now for greater clarity) is they could be much more nasty than I've seen them since I've been a signed up and become a frequent user.

I put that down to influences I mentioned earlier.