In general, I'm not a person who looks for enemies in life, so it always surprises me to see people who are. Before I ever realized that there were starkly drawn lines in the internet writing community sand, I came across a site called Sitejabber. On it, there were several bad reviews of AW, which surprised me as my interactions here have been, by-and-large, rather pleasant.
So I posted a review of my own to offer forth my opinion for whatever it was worth. Not long after, a handful of folks responded, Tom Dark being one of them, accusing me of things I really didn't understand. According to the responses, I was a sock-puppet and some sort of agenda promoter. I'm still not exactly sure what agenda I was being accused of promoting. It struck me as incredibly irrational.
I've given it a small amount of thought as time has passed. I think the venom has to be coming from somewhere, but I can't figure out where. To date, these are my guesses as to why some folks seem so dead-set on antagonizing AW:
1. Some sort of possible chemical imbalance, as mentioned above,
2. Trolling just for the sake of good time trolling,
3. Legitimate belief, possibly based on political differences spiraled out of control,
4. Revenge for a perceived wrong-doing, or
5. Something I have yet to consider.
I suppose I have trouble understanding a lot of the energy expended in engaging in this back and forth. I'm sure this issue of antagonism is far bigger to some folks than it is to me, so it's easy for me to say it makes more sense to just ignore it all. My limited skin in the fight leaves me more curious than anything else, but I imagine other folks actually have an investment of emotion in the fight. Which I suppose is fair enough.