I’ve had several longish absences. I came back for a time to help keep vigil for Gailcalled in 2015, when she was nearing the end, and after a lapse I returned again when the pandemic made ties with a warm online fellowship especially valuable. Most of the time, mutual respect counts for more than ideological and cultural differences.
Unfortunately there are some troublemakers who come here and don’t value that. Instead some of them seem to be on personal missions to turn things sour or just keep up a level of agitation, as if civil discourse were an open invitation to disturbance. Others are just plain rude and sarcastic. I will not engage with them at all.
The mods are wonderful, but they can’t do everything. What seems to work best is simply to carry on as we do, friend to friend. Let the trolls stomp their feet like Rumpelstiltskin until they split in half or simply get themselves banned.