What you mention reminds me of something I've experienced several times. I've seen it happen here, too. If a controversial topic comes up as a discussion you'll see people appear in the forum for the first time, where they ridicule the poster they don't agree with, agitate, and misdirect. Then, as soon as the thread cools...POOOF!...they're gone. There are obviously operatives, probably government backed, out there who scour the internet for discussions with key words. Then, in some odd hope of bending public opinion, they create a log in and get to work. It has been noticeable here because this forum is, relatively speaking, a pretty tight group of people. New names pop right out. Years ago when I was on Facebook it was obvious. The user's profile what basically that of a storefront manikin - no family, a couple foreign friends, hahaha...

To add to what Commander said...This is a pretty tight group and you certainly should introduce yourself. This is a great group here. Rarely do we have real (as opposed to what I'm mentioning above) agitators. When/if we do they simply don't fit in here. There are plenty of other places on the internet for meaningless fights...I call them "sandboxes", like FB.

In addition to my other post I would add; I've not seen you in the new introductions in The Gulch.
This may cause a bit of suspicion until you've participated in a few exchanges. Just an observation.
Welcome to the fray.

There is systemic bias in a lot of forums and platforms. This has happened in The Gulch.
On occasion there have been systemic, anonymous downvoting sprees here as well.