Why the Hostility?

I love the NaNoWriMo forums. In fact, now that I've won Nano three years in a row, and have amply proven to myself that I can do large amounts of writing in a short amount of time, one of the main draws of Nano is the community. The writing is still my focus, of course, but a big part of the fun is doing it with so many other people. Every year, the forums have been filled with people getting ready to tackle a large goal together, supporting each other, and approaching writing with a fun and playful attitude.

But this year it's different.

This year, the forums are much more hostile than they used to be. There are people tearing apart other people's plots, people complaining at the number of people who aren't writing a serous novel, people complaining that the new people are too enthusiastic (which struck me as very strange), and more. I don't know what happened. Maybe the event has reached some sort of critical mass; maybe people are just feeling cranky this year; maybe this hostility has even been there all along and I just didn't notice it before (though I know at least one other person feels the same way I do). Whatever the reason, I hope it stops; I want the old Nano forums back.