So much black-and-white on these forums (and all forums on the internet, I'm aware. I've seen flame wars you wouldn't believe on knitting forums.) On both sides. If you say anything good about SE, you're a "white knight". If you suggest ways for people to improve themselves (and no, I'm not talking about 'git gud', I've seen very thorough and helpful discussions on here) you're an "elitist". If you ask for people to put some thought into their complaints and present them in an organized manner, you're "telling them not to post". If you try to point out unfair or bad aspects of a topic, event, item, or element, you're "nothing but a naysayer". Are there white knights here? Yes. Are there elitists on here? Yes. Are there folks who want to censor discussions they don't like? Yes. Are there constant naysayers on here? Yes. Their existence, however, does not then necessitate that every person who posts falls into one of those categories.

While I may not agree with some of the more extreme verbiage in some of the posts on here, I think the biggest point that I agree with - and that most people agreeing with this thread have stated - is not that they want complainers to "shut up" or any topics to be taboo. We just want moderation and consideration. Insulting people who disagree with you isn't professional or mature. Using terms like "white knight" and "elitist" with every other word sounds a lot like you're just attempting to shut up people you don't agree with. Flooding the forums with the same complaint isn't productive - it's already been noted that length of thread is what gets noticed, not volume of threads. By all means, express your discontent. I've expressed mine more than once. But if people are expressing it to actually see changes made, then why are they so against doing it in a way that has a better chance of being acknowledged?

You want proof, look at the last few months of forum posts. The three I can think of offhand that got moderator posts are: 1) Ungarmax, 2) Glamour dresser retrieval, 3) Eureka. 1) was addressed because it was what the devs considered a game-breaking bug, and they wanted to stem the rumours before they got too bad. Damage control. 2) was addressed because it was a request for factual information. 3) was addressed because the thread jumped up to almost a hundred pages in just a day or two. It was overwhelming. And on the same vein, even though I don't think it was recent, the "Guys' cool glamour" thread got a response when it was super-long, too. They're not going to jump in on complaint threads because the questions asked are usually rhetorical, or if they are actual requests for information, they're answers that even the devs wouldn't have (what's the long-term goal for the game, are we going to go free-to-play, how dare you do this thing?) And if they're not actually reading each thread, then seeing them pop up, go for 5-15 pages, then die seems more like they're not really that important.

I don't want people to stop complaining. I don't want this forum to be an echo chamber. I want this forum to be a place where people can discuss topics, and where concerns can actually be filtered and addressed. But it's hard to have discussions when people are spamming the same thing over and over again (where do you take the discussion? Which of the 30 different threads?) or angrily typing insults and refusing to actually engage in a discussion. ("O.o You must be insane for thinking such a thing." isn't really good for continuing conversations, you know?)