First of all, congrats to AJ... he is an amazing player and ambassador to this game and community.
I came here to post a new thread today and stumbled across this one excited to comment to congratulate AJ. However, after reading further, I didn't realize there was this level of negative sentiment running in the community lately. As playing a lot of FPS and knowing how toxic other online communities are, I've always bragged about this community as supportive and positive to anyone that will listen. While I haven't been around, I always enjoyed that I could come back here and see what the group I consider closest to "home" is up to.
It's been a lot of the same faces consistently for over 10 years... that's pretty amazing and unique to itself. How many relationships in your life can you say fall into that category? While I know we get under each other's skin from time to time and we've been around long enough to know exactly how to push each other's buttons, everyone here is in a very select and unique family. It might not be the largest online community and it may not draw the most attention but everyone here is dedicated to one of the best games ever made and this is where that passion is shared. This site has been created and maintained by people more dedicated than ourselves. Out of respect to them and the continued pursuit to enjoy this game at its fullest, I hope that the fighting is simply competitive posturing and when push comes to shove, I hope we can all agree we have each other's back.