It really does feel like some people just have an axe to grind with GB.
From my experience it is one of the more chill communities out there.
And you have patrick and alex who tend to be fairly outspoken on issues. But maybe i'm just blind to it? Just feels weird that apparently a community that people need to have discussions with over other groups. This is turning into #notallgamingwebsitecommunities and I don't really mean it that way. But it isn't like the GB forums are some sort of hive of GG villany.
Well, my take on it is that the whole twitter bullshit over the hiring has colored a some people's views on the GB community, and the site (and sometimes thinking of the two as one big thing). No doubt some people from the community participated in that bullshit, and so did a lot of fucking assholes from Reddit, 4chan and the likes. That's still in the back of the head of a lot of people. In general I think that the GB forums are now well-moderated compared to most forums that aren't GAF, but there's still a lot of pro-GG people there (as there is everywhere), and people can also just create accounts in no time and post vile shit.
Having followed the forum thread created to discuss the Letter From the Editor, I didn't see much harassment. The majority agreed with Jeff, and there was also a lot of people who didn't understand what the big deal was, and some people who supports GG. I wouldn't say that things got very ugly when the whole hiring stuff was brought up in the last few pages, but it's clear that a lot of people feel they need to defend GB even though Jeff has said that they don't need defending. Even Wu seems to believe that it was more "a resistance to listening" (quote from her Twitter) than outright hostility.
You only need to go to GS and the comments under their letter from the editor to see a truly vile community.