Wow, that sounds like an unmitigated disaster. I'm glad it didn't turn you away completely!

Story Games was a peculiar animal. I think it fell prey to a vulnerability of some styles of moderated fora, where people don't overtly swear at one another, troll, etc., but instead engage in constant, low-grade, plausibly deniable snark. I can't blame that Chef runner for trying something different--forum discourse had Internet toxicity on lock well before the advent of today's social media.