Plus the community had developed a careless attitude towards each other where any nastiness got a pass. I saw several flame wars go down in that IRC, bitter arguments that my friends looked at and shook their heads at. One said, "somebody should have been banned long before it got there."

Thank you, it's good to be warned. My main reason for liking Python was that the community was so friendly; having used other languages where you say anything and get shot down it's a deciding factor for future choices.