I thought I agreed with the underlying premise of this thread, that players in the forum used to be more positive than they are now. Now I’m not so sure. I just took a quick look at the first thread I posted on, which started in May 2017. It’s still running and I’m not convinced that the tone is less positive now than it was back then.
This is just one example, of course, but with hindsight one of the clearest memories I have of early forum days was feeling like the place was filled with complaints about how players didn’t like particular aspects of the game. That was just an impression and it’s not a reliable measure of anything, but maybe things haven’t gone so far downhill as it sometimes seems.