I'm not going to mince words here. I know what I'm about to say will annoy some people. But I see far too well what you mean by this.

I have been called a harsh mod by many. And this stems from my noticing the tainting process increasing. A forum will always have a bit of taint; the other forum I moderate has very little, and it's because we'd clamped down hard on it. So I started trying to do that here. But, some of the regulars had been "stealth trolling" for so long that they appealed my bans on them for it. The person I have to report to said that stealth trolling is something made up by mods to unfairly ban people, and overturned several of my bans issued for it. And I hate to admit it, but I think that's when things started to escalate further.

What happened, is that people saw that others were stealth trolling and either not being acted on, or having their bans reversed. This sends the message (which is still being sent, hence why more are noticing the problem) that stealth trolling is okay. So more started doing it. I know that everyone has their favorite systems and games, myself included. But if the only way you can praise them is by putting down the others, then it creates a more hostile atmosphere for the people who like that other thing being put down. Exhibit A: the Microsoft fanbase on this site. Some of the fans in ALL of the other camps were getting away with trashing MS, and having no action taken against them. Thus, it's not a surprise that we have so few of them.

When it comes to the rules and enforcement, favorites do not matter. A post must be looked at from all sides. Even if I may agree and chuckle inside, if a post is bashing game X, system Y, or user Z, it is deserving of moderation for trolling or flaming. This is where the problem comes in. I'm not going to name names, but there are some people modding based on their favorites. (I'm not going to lie, I know early in, I was a little oversensitive on a few. That's part of the curve of starting to mod a forum.) And when one tries to step out of said favorites world, unless its so over-the-top, the ban is sometimes appealed, because it ties into the appelate's beliefs. As long as people are allowed to continue trolling like this, things are only going to get worse. The reason I initially joined the forums here was because the community was so much more civil than most others for gaming. I fear that I'm watching us slide, degenerate into the other forums, and despite my hammer, I'm powerless to do anything about it.

"Do you ever hate gaming forums".

Only in threads about point&click adventures, like this one for example. Whenever I read these kind of threads on VGC, I have the feeling that most people don't know or care about the current state of genre they're talking about, sometimes not even the thread starter.

Whenever I see posts like "I miss point and click adventures", I instantly know that the person actually doesn't miss them and I feel the urge to put him in a microwave.

Well, some people do want a definitive answer on the best graphics in any game, so I'm all for comparing the top games. Comparing Crysis and KZ seems like a pretty natural fit. You have the best looking PC franchise vs. the best looking console franchise. Though, comparing a demo is silly, and comparing anything but the very top is strange to me too. Personally, I don't care, but it's pretty close-minded to say "it serves no purpose" and they should "please die in a fire" for wanting comparisons.

Comparing multi-plat is good though since many people (like myself) have multiple consoles, and if I'm going to buy X game, I would usually like to know if one is distinctly better than the other.