Actually, what I saw on comp.lang.forth the last few times I checked it (coincidentally, I tried yesterday) makes the news not really surprising.
Aside from the spam, it gradually switched from passionate but respectful debates to name calling and plain insults from newbies to what remained of the veterans.
One could read very long arguments between Elizabeth D. Rather, CEO at that time of Forth, Inc. which she founded with C. Moore somewhere in the 70ies, and Jeff Fox (RIP), who was working at that time with Moore; Moore left his first company to pursue its adventures in hardware, making different "Forth processors", which eventually led to the RTX2000 which powered, notably, the Rosetta probe.
