As for the last part of your post, I agree that there is a lot of negativity, though I wouldn't say it's all from people trying to shut down criticisms of the game. There's just a lot of negativity in any discussion, which I think is nearly inevitable in an internet forum where people can read negative tone into the posts they don't agree with and things can escalate from there. I am as guilty of this as any, unfortunately.
I completely agree that this isn't a one-sided issue. What I'm talking about is not disagreement but gatekeeping, where any and all dissent is disregarded and folks are told to "shut up". This isn't specific to any particular viewpoint, and the plural of anecdote isn't data, but I've observed and experienced a lot of this behavior on the 2e forums. I think this kind of negativity scares away new players - I know that's been the case for other RPGs.
Constructive, respectful criticism breaks up groupthink (something I'm certainly guilty of at times) and should be cherished, not scorned.
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I completely agree that this isn't a one-sided issue. What I'm talking about is not disagreement but gatekeeping, where any and all dissent is disregarded and folks are told to "shut up". This isn't specific to any particular viewpoint, and the plural of anecdote isn't data, but I've observed and experienced a lot of this behavior on the 2e forums. I think this kind of negativity scares away new players - I know that's been the case for other RPGs.Constructive, respectful criticism breaks up groupthink (something I'm certainly guilty of at times) and should be cherished, not scorned.
This is exactly what I meant about reading negative intention into posts. You feel like dissenting opinions are told to "shut up", but really it's normally just other people presenting their own arguments about the topic. The fact that so many arguments are given is taken as a negative implication without anyone actually saying something like that (well, sometimes someone comes out with a personal attack straight away, but that usually happens after the thread devolves a bit instead).
I think part of the problem is that threads seem to be something of an "opinion popularity contest" at times. Both sides of an argument are not trying to convince each other but instead trying to drum up support, and the one who "wins" is the one who has more people come into the thread and express a similar opinion. You can see this in threads where people completely avoid each other's points and/or pull some extreme strawman arguments out, making it obvious that it's not about actually discussing and convincing each other. A lot of times this starts with one person and a whole thread gets dragged into it.
There is a lot of what some would call "bandwagoning", where a lot of people express the same opinion in slightly different ways. This is to make a public display that this is the majority opinion on the forum, and form a sort of "public opinion on the topic by consensus", which definitely gives the impression that since this is now public opinion dissenting opinions shouldn't be voiced. None of this is necessarily directed at you though, it's just how forum discussions work.
I think I'm getting hugely off topic and should maybe make a "meta discussions" thread though.