Unfortunately, that's both the nature of the internet, and the nature of expansion in a forum atmosphere. The more people you attract, the greater the chance that you are going to attract the people who might possibly bring a negative attitude to the community. The great thing about this, is that each individual is fully responsible for their contributions to the overall attitude. If every single person were to dedicate themselves to attempting to help other people and respond to topics in a positive way, then there wouldn't be any problem. On the other side of the coin there are two other options:

1.) The middle-ground, where you don't necessarily create negativity yourself, but rather remonstrate both individuals and the forum in general for negativity (which in and of itself is a somewhat negative action)

2.) The totally negative end of the spectrum- Where you come to the table without an open mind and make posts based entirely on negative energy rather than truly searching for an intelligent compromise to whatever issue you may be concerned about.

I would say that by criticizing the quality of the boards with sarcasm, you fall into the first category. Without offering any beneficial opinion as to how the community can be improved, you are - at best - creating a net 0 effect on the overall attitude.

But that's the wonderful thing about the fluid nature of internet discussion. From now on, both your contributions, along with the contributions of each and every individual on the boards can be positive and this, in turn, creates the positive community that we all want to be a part of. Hopefully we can all attempt to take the time before we respond to posts and think "How can I most positively effect this situation? What would the most beneficial aspect that I may add to this discussion? Do I really need to post, or would it be more useful for me to leave the topic to die and rather take my valuable and limited time on this earth to leave the computer for a bit and apply my positive and useful attitude to expanding our community through action?"

If we all do this, even just part of the time, we will be going a long way towards creating something great.

one thing to say to dan. if he was twisting your wourds why don't you PROVE him wrong by putting out the SUPPOSED true email. god no backing, if your going to lie do it well noob.

jmanndriver - I don't think calling anyone a "noob" is going to help a situation which you're not particularly a part of [being relatively new] and that has to a large extent been resolved already. I know you were trying to help and defend M2, but he's a big boy. =D

This goes for everyone : see gear's post at the top of this page, please!

EDIT : *shakes fist at gear for having the quickest draw in town*