When Gransnet was launched I had no idea what to expect as I had never joined an online forum before. At that time my life was upside down; my daughter's husband had been killed in Afghanistan a year before and I had abandoned my work and my own activities to support her and her new baby. In real life I have a very supportive family and good friends, but Gransnet was there for me 24/7 and I shall always be grateful for the kindness and warmth that GN posters offered. I flew to Scotland (from Devon) to attend the first real life get together and I met some very special people, including Marmight who hosted me and another Gransnetter - in effect, two complete strangers - in her home.
There were some fairly blunt exchanges right from the beginning, but I always thought that posters pretty much represented what you'd find in any community of diverse people. Because there were far fewer posters it was easier then to get a sense of the person behind the post and so I think allowances were made for differing personalities - although even then there were some clashes of fairly epic proportions. More people coming onto the forums has meant that, for people like me who have poor memories, it's not so easy nowadays to keep track of individual posters and to develop an holistic understanding of their personalities.
I am a green, left-wing activist, but not party political; I am a Christian, I am a wife, mother, grandmother, charity worker, ex-social worker, teacher and Chaplain. But mostly I'm just a human being and fortunately I have that in common with everyone else who posts on this site - so what we have in common trumps the differences. 