I believe that part of this Board’s decline in traffic, a very small (but non-zero) part, is a result of the rise of so-called ‘omnibus threads’ in the Pit.
Before such threads became a staple - actually, they’re more like a fixture now - of the Pit, I would occasionally participate in various RO, ‘corrupt cops’, ‘stupid gun’, etc., threads. I even started a few of my own.
But I’ll be damned if I’m going to wade through hundreds or thousands of posts to see if what I’d like to say or post has already been mentioned. Maybe more importantly, there’s no longer much incentive to add to the thread since anything I say will get lost in the crowd. And, unless I actually go through the effort of opening a new thread, with the specific topic of my derision in the title, no one who’s scanning the Pit page will even know that I’ve tried to add something new.
Just one example: unless I’m mistaken, there were no Pit threads opened regarding the tragic case of Sandra Bland. OTOH, I will assume (but admit that I can’t be certain) that there’s a ‘Pit-type’ discussion of her traffic stop and death somewhere to be found in the omnibus thread entitled, “Controversial encounters between law-enforcement and civilians - the omnibus thread”. Even if not, I’m sure you get my point - in the absence of the omnibus thread, it’s a pretty safe bet that a Pit thread (or three) would have been started about her.