If I had to nail a single point, it'd be treating the forum like IRC. That's definitely it. It's probably worse because we
have an IRC channel specifically for that sort of thing. I'm certainly not trying to come off as holier-than-thou about this, because I did my fair share of shitposting, but it's something that should be recognized and actively worked against. I cringe when I go back and read some of my really old posts for much the same reason that this stuff irks me.
@Tawa: Re: the link to the black hole: Less than you'd think. This is probably the first time I really recall a major expression of discontent along these lines, and it's certainly the first time I've felt this strongly about it. I mentioned it offhand before, but the only vaguely similar thing I remember was a couple years back when certain individuals were ranting about hugboxing, but that was (by my recollection) half the offspring of political discussion and half certain individuals being upset when multiple people challenged their arguments.
I was pretty bad when I joined, though I don't think I did all that E-peen waving stuff (mostly because I don't know what it is) I had some messy grammar.
Feel free to berate me for anything though, I always need to know if I've screwed up somehow.
Never worry about spelling/grammar/usage/whatever as long as you're making an honest effort and it's more or less legible.
Unless you're writing a story, don't bother to spellcheck, and litter your text with misplaced heterographs. Then I will find you and kill you.--
The early seeds were planted in 2013, but they sprouted into our modern state this summer.
To be fair, there was a certain degree of in-grouping and character jokes before this wave. It's just that people occasionally making a situationally appropriate reference to MSH and MZ being timeclones or whatever is markedly less annoying than a circle of people jerking each other off over their sets of "quirks".
(I'd suggest making a forum game for that, but yeah.)
--
A guy at the college I attend was walking while laying down. I have no words.
And now we return to our regularly scheduled WTF. A wandering limbomaster, perhaps?