the worst the posts got the more fun people were having. If you think Maff was bad, you have not been to many forums around the web.
facebook took over and forums all around are not what they once were.
Yeah that's a total load. Ive posted regularly on forums/message boards since the 56k days and Maff is one of the more closed off/elitist forums. The moderation is also atrocious.
That's fine if you want to take offense, I'm not saying it's universal, but the forum is/was not open whatsoever to newcomers or people asking questions. Anytime somebody asked about a location people would get pissy and defensive. I regularly saw responses to my questions and others along the lines of "find your own spots" "I hate spot burners" "learn on your own, we all had to". What a load of crap it's a forum ffs, dedicated to sharing and learning and everybody here guarded their info like it was some treasure. Bass resource and several other fishing forums are a lot more encouraging and welcoming.
Again this isn't an indictment on anybody in particular (outside of DanG who threatened to track me down and started harrasing me on various social media)and there are definitely some good people here, but on the whole, it's a poorly moderated and hostile community.
Edit- I'd also like to add that somewhat recently there was a cleanup so to speak with several members banned and threads/posts that were deleted. There was a nice big window when that elitist attitude seemed to dominate, and I think that was enough to drive people away while also keeping newbies from getting involved. I'm still gonna post here occasionally maybe it'll turn around.
I dont know about elitist attitude. I do know the time period you're speaking of when a couple or few people were really hostile and every thread was a name calling fight. I've never seen anyone ask a question about a technique or advice on a piece of equipment not get answered. As far as giving spots up, I did when I first got here. My favorite place to fish. Told anyone who asked how to get in. Place is destroyed now. I'll never give another spot up on social media again.
I fully understand the value of a honey hole. The reactions I've seen are horrendous especially to completely benign questions. There would be threads of people who moved to a new area or were on vacation with questions about where to fish and the response basically boiled down to f*** off. There's a difference between sharing info and being hostile. It makes us and fishermen in general look like assholes. Again it's not a coincidence that this place is as dead as it's ever been after the type of attitude around here.
This place is dead because the guys who contributed to this site, without asking for anything in return, left.
Not true, I'm still here. If everyone would like I will put together a tourney for mid summer on Oldham. Seems like a lot of guys like that place.
I haven't been there since the last time I saw you there. Best part of that day was me photo bombing you and your daughter
Cheers,
Kevin
Yeah that's a total load. Ive posted regularly on forums/message boards since the 56k days and Maff is one of the more closed off/elitist forums. The moderation is also atrocious.
That's fine if you want to take offense, I'm not saying it's universal, but the forum is/was not open whatsoever to newcomers or people asking questions. Anytime somebody asked about a location people would get pissy and defensive. I regularly saw responses to my questions and others along the lines of "find your own spots" "I hate spot burners" "learn on your own, we all had to". What a load of crap it's a forum ffs, dedicated to sharing and learning and everybody here guarded their info like it was some treasure. Bass resource and several other fishing forums are a lot more encouraging and welcoming.
Again this isn't an indictment on anybody in particular (outside of DanG who threatened to track me down and started harrasing me on various social media)and there are definitely some good people here, but on the whole, it's a poorly moderated and hostile community.
That one guy last summer that was brutal! He changed his screen name a couple of times before he was finally expelled. Other than that things are pretty peaceful on here compared to a lot of other sites. It is social media, there will be differences of opinion! 
This place is dead because the guys who contributed to this site, without asking for anything in return, left.
Not true, I'm still here. If everyone would like I will put together a tourney for mid summer on Oldham. Seems like a lot of guys like that place.
Do it Rich. Haven't been to Oldham in a long time. If the date works, I'll try to make it!