note to mods - I think this is the correct place for this thread - It’s not so much factual as opinion
Have you noticed any changes in the board since paid membership became the rule? If you have, have they been good changes? Have they been poor ones?
If you haven’t, why do suppose that is? For that matter, if you have why do you suppose that is?
TV
Well…
I won’t name names, but I’ve noticed that there’s been a rash of longtime members who were infrequent posters suddenly coming out of the woodwork and behaving like total asshats. I guess they’ve been keeping a lot of commentary to themselves, but decided that, “hey, I paid to be on this board, so that gives me the right to be a jerk.” Which is partially true- there are now stricter rules about the criteria for banning a poster.
There also seems to have been a rash of name changes in the past month.
What I did notice is more a physical thing than an intellectual one. A thread remains longer. It seems evident to me that since there are fewer posters posting, the threads don’t run through like they have in the past.
Even in GQ where “in the old days” you could see a thread disappear in a couple of hours can take a day for the thread to end up on page 2.
TV
The only difference I’ve noticed is that the Pit seems to be slightly less busy. Not sure why.
I visit GQ & IMHO only, and in those relams I notice volume is waay off and quality is up a smidgen.
Particularly in GQ we get fewer totally hopeless questions, such as “I don’t understand basic arithmetic; please explain tensor calculus to me.”
I don’t follow things closely enogh to notice name changing or folks being asshats as Asbestos Mango suggests.
Overall the tone has calmed down a bit, like a party after the first early-leavers have just left.
Much less posting, I can actually keep up with some threads for a change 
For the first time in about 9 months I can go back to my favored way of browsing the board: clicking “New Posts” and opening interesting-looking threads in their own window; going to next page and continuing until last page, then repeating to catch any that had come in since I started.
At some point last summer it got to the point that I’d never get there, I’d hit “New Posts” and there’d be like 14 pages’s worth and when I finally got to the end (10 hours later) if I hit “New Posts” again there’d be 12 more pages. So I gave up and mostly just read GQ and IMHO and the Pit. There were definitely threads whose titles I never even saw.
Now I get 4-6 pages instead of 14 so I’m back to my old habits.
That’s a good point, I hadn’t considered changes to how a member gets banned.
I have noticed that the board runs much, much smoother. Like AHunter3, with never new posts it takes a lot less time to load up the message board, and my posts actually get through, where as last year only 1 in 5 would go through with out an error.
With very new postings I’ve found that I can take time to formulate a reply. In the past, by the time I got my reply posted there would be 5-10 new replies and mine would seem horribly out of contex.
Another change, I’m actually happier posting here now, now that the pace is a little slower.
Less Bannings.
Not that many guest posts.
I finally came across the first deleted post. (Post #4873181 By Captain Pastrami - In Cafe Society no less)
Speaking of name changes, I don’t understand how you could have such a high post count and I haven’t noticed you until recently. I’m sure I would have remembered such an interesting name, and Islets of Langerhans seems to ring a bell as well…Did you change your name and I missed it? Who are you?
I’ve noticed posts seem to have got longer since the paid subscription came into effect. I often find myself padding out posts in a futile attempt to keep up with this pheneomenen.
Like now for example.
Something kept me from double posting last night when my computer hung up. Is that new? I hadn’t seen it before, but I don’t see as many double posts around here either.
Haven’t encountered a single troll since the subscriptions kicked in.
[asshat hat on]Fewer bannings.[/asshat hat off]
Well, yes.
The, ah, logical assumption would be that I have in fact change my name.
I’ll leave it to you to guess who I was before.
I thought that was you, Thea. How many posters do we have living in our pancreas?
I’ve noticed that the BBQ Pit has slowed way down, and I don’t like it. My schadenfreude is suffering.
One really unwelcome change…far more jerky posts. A veritable explosion of them.
In the name of all that’s good and decent and non-sociopathic, I hope that this is only because of a false sense of entitlement, and not because being a Charter Member now means that you cannot get banned for anything. I’m loyal to this board because jerks are not tolerated, and either they go or I go.
Check out just about anything by Brutus or…whasis name, the one who scoffed at being pitted. Real war hawk. The fact that this can go on here in any capacity is distressing.