From a traffic, resources and expenses perspective IMDb would be much better off without boards. There are some community benefits though and boards without a significant troll population flourish with interesting discussions and genuine community which is why we keep them around.
From seven months ago. It sounds like their argument about a negative environment being the reason to shut down the boards is bunk by their own words. He is implying that IMDb generally DOES have a positive presence on it's boards. To make it even more blatantly a lie that Trolls were the cause of the board shutdown, he has clearly been discussing the board closure for financial reasons at length with other people in the company based off of the first sentence.