Yeah, I had a privileged view of the whole thing, having gotten into a central position more or less by accident. The competitive element energized me to write funny stuff back then, but at the cost of denying the ugly aspects of it to myself.

I remember the time Sam managed to cheese off a bunch of regulars by having the gall to suggest that a particularly antisocial cross-group trolling session was not OK. One of them told me to give her a good talking-to and set her straight, apparently without realizing we were dating (but it would have been pretty creepy regardless). It was one of the very few times I actually flew off the handle.