For years I'd sensed an edgy, unfriendly arrogance from occasional interactions with some users here in Electronics SE that I don't experience in any other science and engineering SE site, along the lines of what many had complained about in Stack Overflow in the past before it got better.
EE has definitely gotten much better after some changes in site moderators a while ago. Until recently I'd used a profile picture on this site different than the once I use everywhere else network-wide and that difference seemed to have made a difference; with it I got less flack.
Yesterday I tried an experiment and switched back to the same image I use everywhere else, and I immediately noticed a change back to the old, unpleasant experience.
First (left) used here until yesterday; second (right) used everywhere else network-wide
Yesterday I changed back to the mathematical surface used in sphere eversion, asked a question requiring a simple mathematical treatment, and was instantly slammed by a wall of critical, divergent comments and two answers all by one user.
Now the answer to the question is simple and I'd thought it would be a slam-dunk for someone to show that the power radiated by two dipoles driven 90 degrees out of phase is fairly isotropic over the whole \$4 \pi \$ sr in the far field, but instead there are rapid fire comments that proceed in a large number of divergent directions, each testing a way to negate this simple, undeniable mathematical fact.
The barrage of comments require careful reading; taken lightly and combined with the user's rep, they sound authoritative and can appear credible, but taken all together one can see that after each is shown to be false, mathematically problematic or irrelevant, another "angle of attack" is tried. I don't feel this is trying to solve the problem or address the question as much as it is to extinguish my hope of an answer, to cause me to leave the site or to give up participating and not to get to the answer to How can a crossed dipole (turnstile) antenna be omnidirectional in 3D? which is simply to drive them 90 degrees out of phase.
Question: Does this site strive to be positive, thoughtful, cooperative and get to the bottom of interesting questions. Is that what happened on my question, or was it something else? If one feels that a user has a different goal, how can one call this out?
I invite readers to review all of the comments and take them together before addressing the "Is that what happened on my question" part.