Personally I find the speed with which personal attacks or petty arguments happen on a lot of threads vey depressing. Within the blink of an eye, what I hoped would be a good aviation related conversation, descends in to a childish argument or slanging match. For that reason I often think better of participating.
Strangely (given we like to think we're laid back), this appears to be a lot worse on the Aus forums than elsewhere on Prune.