I'm curious about your comment on the ES forums. Do you mean you feel the users aren't very friendly or that the site itself isn't very user-friendly?
Aside from an unhealthy, obsessive hatred of Fargoth displayed by many of the posters, I haven't really noticed much overt hostility, flamewars, etc in the postings at ES. Certainly, the sheer number of users there tends to preclude the type of laid-back comraderie we enjoy here at GB
On the mechanics side, I would have to agree. The site is unavailable for several hours
every day, as if they shut down the server when they go home at night. Pages can take ages to load. After registering and successfully posting 3 times, I now get an error message when attempting to post
However, the 'search' works well and there
is a veritable cornucopia of information to peruse.
Of course, it's dedicated to just this one game - Morrowind. I think the nicest thing about the GB forums is that we get to discuss different games with the same group of people.
I'll just add this:
The principal Fargoth-hater, in yet another of his/her innumerable (and mostly tiresome) killing Fargoth stories, actually had me ROTFLMAO with one involving 2 guards that began:
First Guard: "...so I said to the guy, "Keep moving." "