To be fair, most of them by now already have been cleaned by the moderators or completely deleted, but even ignoring that, this year as far as I've seen has had the most bans out of the other years in the forums' life time. I'm surprised at this point how some of us (including me) still have a slither of patience to stick around this hellfire after years of decline.
This year has definitely had the most bans, and to me that's simply due to the unrest amongst users and changes in the forum's moderation (amongst other things). As for having the patience to stick around, I can't sympathise there, I take things as they come and adjust to them if needs be This is only an internet forum though so I can simply just not look at the things I don't like. I can't imagine it'll get so unbearable that I should have to leave though.
Clearly hasn't been the same for a good chunk of veterans though, or some of the new people actually. Some people either announced their departures, have fallen completely or near to inactive, or as mentioned, banned. For me, it's just the consistency of toxicity and idiocy across the board that really deters me from wanting to stick around this community for much longer.
I really like it here. I have spent a lot of time on this forum and wouldn't be the person I am today without this place. Just look for the good in the people here and it suddenly this place isn't so bad. If we all stop pouting about "the good old days" and start acting like the best days are now, things will change for the better.
And it's a shame it's come to that for many other users as well. BeamNG as a game has influenced me far more than any other game has, hell it's the only game I've properly learnt how to mod (somewhat), and I think, for me, that outweighs any bad that could happen on these forums. So long as I still hold an interest in the game, I'll keep coming back here just to see what ideas people have and what things might be coming in the future, etc. It's the only forum where I've actually felt like I have an attachment to what's going on. I'm not sure if that's anywhere near to the reason you're still holding on but I can only speak from my experiences.
Everyone else basically summed it up. The suggestions/ideas threads are always shot down with "too much work" / "impossible" by people who make wild guesses on how games work, vehicle projects have a ton of beggars, and anything else has needless drama / toxcicity.
Ignoring people isn't really the answer and is not at all what I meant by my post. Sometimes you need to look through the negative words of a users post and imagine the person writing it. Determine the intended message and try to realise why they are being aggressive. When people are being selfish or entitled, I normally ask them a simple question because it forces them to come up with an answer. Normally, they can't come up with an answer and take a step back and look at the situation from another perspective. It seems to break tension and make people change their tone without making anyone upset, so I guess it works.
Unfortunately, the problem with how I've gone through the forums is that the majority of users I come across are dickish and generally inconsiderate in multiple degrees. I do have a fair share of people I have made friends with on the forums, but a lot of them I already have contact with them on another platform which I find far more comfortable and less toxic than here. There's just barely much left for me to even stick around, which to be frank probably won't matter to most of y'all (either because I already have contact with the particular people I actually like from here or just that I don't have any significant impact on your forum experiences). Besides, it's becoming clear that without much interest in playing BeamNG as of now and has been just a 'growing tumor' considering my experiences, the most I've done since I "rejoined" the community was being blunt to other users or on the occasion making a small contribution to a thread. I don't even have much fond memories with the forums, and frankly I've found other games to put my time into. Whenever I do decide to formally quit the forums once and for all, I'd rather do it quietly since it doesn't really matter whatsoever if I announce it or not.
Since we are talking about forums, from curious I`ve looked at Community Screenshots thread from May 2018 and wow, things were different! No wars, no dramas, no personal attacks, just screenshots
i mean nobody's saying it was all sunshine and rainbows an argument is inevitable on a forum we're just saying that it was more chill in general
"A multitude of all the population in this forum are pissed off. Hence the cool guys dropping out." I don't think that seems chill...
that's 1 post if 1 post summarizes the past 7 years of these forums and all the moments on it, then I stand corrected if not it's a really dumb leading point again, I'm not saying everything is sunshine and rainbows i'm saying it was more chill in general
If only there was a way to temporarily shut down the site for a month or two so people can take time to regain the sanity they had only a year ago.