Literally made an account on the new forum for this...
you wanted some replies from someone not involved in the politics, here you go: This shit being in the news thread is really fucking weird and a bad look. This whole thing reeks of internal politics and abusing a position.
And on an earlier point on retention: tbh, toxicity in faf's kinda bad, but main reason I've seen from people as to why they don't play / don't play more is that it's hard to get good games / play well. Getting flamed upon doing poorly was part of that... but that's about getting flamed in the game itself, not that there's people being rude on the forum. Most players don't ever engage with the forums after all, or even the faf discord.