Bronies only "love and tolerate" when it arbitrarily suits them. If you believe that "love and tolerance" is a mantra that bronies are commited to then I'm sorry to say this but you'd be in for quite a disappointment. I would bet that many bronies do no recognize the mantra as anything to be commited to. We just don't know what went wrong.

Bronies only "love and tolerate" when it arbitrarily suits them. If you believe that "love and tolerance" is a mantra that bronies are commited to then I'm sorry to say this but you'd be in for quite a disappointment.

Truth be told, I'm well beyond disappointment now.  And, despite my years and leanings towards cynicism, I allowed myself to believe differently of the fandom at some point.  Entirely my own fault, I admit; I should not have been so naive.  And while I do not paint all Bronies with the same brush, my growing disillusion has left me somewhat bitter (back where I started lol).  Thank you for reading and commenting.

Your experience seems to mirror my own in the broadest sense as I could say pretty much the same thing.

Entirely my own fault, I admit; I should not have been so naive.

I hope, at the very least, that the experience has taught you something valuable. The experience may be terrible but it's still possible to walk out with something constructive.

And while I do not paint all Bronies with the same brush, my growing disillusion has left me somewhat bitter (back where I started lol)

Indeed. If you want to talk about it more, we could do that via PM. While the exact details of our ordeals differ, the beginning and the conclusion is very similar.

The love and tolerate thing is great but that dosen't change the fact that there are going to be hypocrites and this fandom seems to attract a lot of them for some reason. It is easy to say "love and tolerate" when someone says or does something you don't like or agree with until the horseshoe is on the other hoof. I have tried to not let them bother me but with this site being hijacked by them and moderation increasingly out of touch I made the conscious decision to no longer concern myself with the "politics" of this site. Despite this and a few other things this is still a relatively decent site but one clearly in decline, I don't know how much longer I will stay but I of course still go by the school of though to acknowledge the bad but still try to see the good.

 With that said threads like "ugliest pony" are rather obvious troll/flame bait material and that one perhaps went on a bit longer than it should have but although I am by no means perfect responding to that dosen't help the situation. I don't know if the other individual in question also got warning points (I would certainly hope so) but I can say that responding to a inflammatory post with another one is legitimate grounds for that. With that said though with my previous point about moderation being increasingly out of touch treating the symptoms rather than the cause is a rather unfortunate yet likely scenario. 

You are right though that they seem to dread "controversy" and in some cases it is understandable but in a few others it seems like they can get a tad trigger happy with this. To give some credit where it is due though I have noticed a lot of threads that previously would have just been locked permanently are now only being locked temporarily which is a positive step in the right direction. There are plenty of topics worthy of discussion that deserve a chance and this practice will hopefully reduce the likelihood that those could be ruined by the actions of a few. 

Whenever I see threads like, "least favorite X" or. "What X do you hate," 9/10 times I usually ignore because most of the post seem bitter and full of hate. I don't like too much hate in my life because it makes a a very pessimistic person. And whenever any form of debate starts, the thread usually gets locked for clean up, even if the debate didn't escalate into petty insults. It doesn't help that the hate threads seem to be the most popular, with some of them usually getting more replies than the average positive thread. Why? Because it's easier to state your negative opinions than your positive ones. It's easier to spread out anger than happiness. It's easier to point out what's wrong with a broken machine than why it's working properly.

Personally, I feel people should lessen on that since they in term create a forum full of pessimism.

I see you're skewing the information. Part of the reason you were warned is because of your very poor behavior in that thread. You took several posts in that thread, mocked them, and twisted them just to gain an upper hand. You took a user who claimed Derpy was the ugliest pony and said if he voted for Derpy by mistake, then he wouldn't blame him. Then you argued with another user, called her out publicly by mocking her choice (and used the @Mention function so she could see your post), twisted her wording, and later "fixed" a post from her just to gain an upper hand in your argument.

It's one thing to question someone's value choices and debate them. It's another to make yourself look much worse than the person you're arguing by belittling them. You did this once before by using someone else's typo when she equated Fluttershy's personality to a paper cup, and you obviously didn't learn your lesson. It's no surprise you were warned.

 

I've seen a number of topics involving the dreaded C-word shut down right quick; the excuse seemingly being that the topic is more trouble than it's worth.

You should've seen the drama in those threads about clop. Because of the controversial nature of the subject, it's been a major source of MLP Forums drama, and it was really, really bad. There have been so many threads dedicated to it, and the drama in each and every one of them was too much of a headache for the staff. That's why the staff banned clop-related discussion and has only one dedicated thread in the Debate Pit. They wouldn't ban a whole discussion without justification.

 

Why is this? Why does the fandom (at least as represented by this forum) love "hate" so much?

Because the fandom is full of human beings. The brony fandom isn't a hivemind. People are friendly with each other, but they're not going to like or endorse everything. People in the fandom will debate and argue with each other. There are people with intense likes and dislikes for well-informed or poorly informed reasons. Every one of us has a specific limit before we don't tolerate. There are certain things I won't tolerate. You, too. Everyone else, as well.

The "ugliest pony" thread is one such example. Here's the final post from one of the lead admins:

 

The staff has decided to lock this topic permanently. While both positive-oriented and negative-oriented discussions are welcome, there comes a point when a topic serves little purpose other than to promote bashing, unconstructive negativity and an all-around unpleasant environment. This topic lays in that category.
 
Keep in mind that all forum discussions should have substance. You shouldn't just post saying you love or hate something. Instead, you should provide an explanation, and ensure that your post adds to the discussion in a civil manner.

You could argue that another reason it was presumably locked is because after it got bumped (prior, its last post was August 19, 2012), far too many were beginning to use the thread as an excuse to bash a character they dislike, which goes against the purpose of the thread and is completely against current site policy.

There are controversial topics around this site a lot, but it's the users' responsibilities for not disrupting the peace and behaving. No one is exempt. You helped disrupt the peace, and you suffered the consequences. It's that simple.

I see you're skewing the information. Part of the reason you were warned is because of your very poor behavior in that thread. You took several posts in that thread, mocked them, and twisted them just to gain an upper hand. You took a user who claimed Derpy was the ugliest pony and said if he voted for Derpy by mistake, then he wouldn't blame him. Then you argued with another user, called her out publicly by mocking her choice (and used the @Mention function so she could see your post), twisted her wording, and later "fixed" a post from her just to gain an upper hand in your argument.

 

It's one thing to question someone's value choices and debate them. It's another to make yourself look much worse than the person you're arguing by belittling them. You did this once before by using someone else's typo when she equated Fluttershy's personality to a paper cup, and you obviously didn't learn your lesson. It's no surprise you were warned.

 

You should've seen the drama in those threads about clop. Because of the controversial nature of the subject, it's been a major source of MLP Forums drama, and it was really, really bad. There have been so many threads dedicated to it, and the drama was too much of a headache for the staff, and they all were the same old, same old. That's why the staff banned clop-related discussion and has only one dedicated thread in the Debate Pit with a specific topic at hand. They wouldn't ban a whole discussion without justification.

I expected something along these lines.  Whenever anyone expresses a negative opinion of the staff, there are those who come out of the woodwork to confront those foolhardy enough to dare speak against them.  Obviously members of the staff are always right in whatever they do.  Obviously they are incapable of making mistakes, all of their actions are absolutely and without exception just and nondiscriminatory, and they seek only to protect us, the lowly rabble, from each other.

NOT.

And I didn't skew anything. xD  Were all of my posts still up, I'd gladly point to them so that others might make their own determination concerning my actions.  I said I'm responsible for what I did - so, too, is the individual who felt the need to attack me personally in response to my initial, relatively harmless implications that they found a rainbow-colored cat or mare aesthetically appealing (oh mai gawd, the horror).  This was NOT an argument, and it escapes me as to how you could mistake such a bit of facetious jousting as being such.  But what was not readily evident was WHY I posted what I posted.  And not only was your reference to my long past defense of Fluttershy irrelevant to today's goings-on (which you've not begun to earn the right to know the true motivation behind), but you've completely missed even the superficial purpose of that post.  I was - clearly in vain - combating negativity in a thread founded on negativity, and I used the typo merely as a jumping-off point to emphasize the glaringly admirable qualities of a mare being unimaginatively and needlessly attacked.  But if attempting to turn a negative into a positive makes me the "bad guy," I will gladly be that bad guy.  Had I said everything excluding the utilization of the typo, you'd not be mentioning that post at all.

I'll be blunt: I don't care why the staff does anything.  Or, rather, why the staff claims to do anything.  People have become afraid and doubtful.  On a damned MLP forum!  The fandom isn't necessarily composed of the most socially confident individuals on the face of the planet, and the mods are ruling it (or this particular microcosm) rather than protecting it.  Which is amusing, considering the very moderate amount of power any of them actually wield.  I'd go so far as to say that they are a detriment rather than an asset, and I've lost any and all faith I might've mistakenly had in the MLPF staff to begin with.  This is their fault.  This is their most grievous offense.  And regardless of what you may think of my reprehensible, gasp-eliciting actions (posting pictures of rainbow cats, defending Fluttershy, engaging in a back-and-forth with someone who continued to quote me when they could've simply walked away), I generally do things for a reason.

And I find it strangely incongruous that you will defend the fandom for being made of human beings but do not afford me the same fairly uninventive and banal excuse.  I, too, am human.  I, too, am capable of making mistakes.  But I am not in a position of authority; nor do I pretend that I am infallible.  I am not even really defending my recent actions.  I am explaining them.

So, thanks for reading. <_<

P.S. The "peace" you speak of is an illusion.  And even that illusion was won through oppression.  Pony forums level oppression, but oppression nonetheless.