Absolutely, it's toxic. Especially asking questions! This was very disturbing each of the 4 or 5 times I tried, on several SE sites. Only once got a helpful ans

Absolutely, it's toxic. Especially asking questions! This was very disturbing each of the 4 or 5 times I tried, on several SE sites. Only once got a helpful answer, but that was the question I cared least about. Having questions closed immediately is the norm. By people who don't understand the question. Once I was shunted between several different sites, as it was deemed to fit better somewhere else. I never bother any more. Similar to wikipedia (although toxic in a different way) - great to look at from the outside, but better not to get involved asking questions/editing - life's too short to wrangle with such people and the system they inhabit. The best question/answer pages on there were almost universally closed for not fitting the site. But they're a wonderful resource for googling quick answers to questions! The TeX/LaTeX one is particularly awesome - the most active people answering questions are the very same people who wrote the best books and packages.