There used to be a great deal more comedy, obscenity and tempers, all of which, I believe, were related. A great deal of life has been sucked out of this place to placate some sense that people’s delicate sensibilities were being offended. I don’t know if that’s being expressed behind the scenes via the reporting function (which is several years old) or TPTB just decided one day to crack down on anything that wasn’t a verbal rainbow. Either way, things are just less…fun. I came here because Cecil’s columns are full of snark, innuendo and crassness, and the board reflected that personality, but in a very light-hearted way. That’s mostly gone now.
Yes you can.
The board is much better now than before. A huge part of this site used to be a tiresome soap opera dominated by a small group of class-clown types and overly dramatic personalities. There were endless inside jokes, cute nicknames, threats to quit the board forever, shout-outs to virtual friends, begging for thoughts & prayers, banding together in solidarity against enemies, that kind of thing. It almost made the site unreadable at times.
Agreed with those saying that the board has become much more technically stable.
Also agree with those saying that the castration of the Pit was not a Good Thing. Some of the best fights in there were also between members and mods - it was a point of pride to me that the mods here could give as good as they got, but apparently now they need to be handled with kid gloves.
I first found this place back sometime before 9/11 happened, at least. I remember reading the boards on that day, and I’d been there for a while before that. There is definitely much more hostility to religion, especially Christianity, than there used to be. Remember when Jerry Falwell made that stupid statement about the attacks being caused by lack of faith, or something like that? On the boards then, the consensus, was more like, “Geez, can you believe that guy? What an idiot!”. Now, the same thing would be greeted with a bunch of people talking about how all religious people are drooling idiots, and talking about how atheists are the smartest people in history. Also, the left wing bent that has always been here is much more strident than it used to be. Conservatism was never exactly looked on favorably, but it used to be at least tolerated.
I’ve been around since the AOL days, but I didn’t register on here until April.
Yeesh, it has changed, but it’s still basically the same. We didn’t have Cafe Society or the Game Room, of course.
I think, to me, the original board was made up primarily of people who were fans of the SD books and columns. Now, I’m not sure if everyone reads them, even. I should start a poll asking how many people, without looking it up, know who Cecil is. I’m not being sarcastic or negative; I just don’t think it is as big a part of the cite anymore.
I think there are more, “Wow…this popular thing a lot of people on here like sucks.” as opposed to, “What am I missing about this show you all like?”
I see more posters using lower case letters and more kids.
I still think the core board is the same, though.
I was lurking in '99 and registered in 2000, so I’ve been around from pretty early on. I don’t think it’s actually all that different now. Like others upthread I do have a feeling that it used to be funnier, more interesting, etc., but a large part of that is probably because I have been here for so long. I think there was once more of a “where everybody knows your name” feel to the place, but as the board grew and people came and went it was inevitable that this would start to fade.
FWIW I can remember a number of jerks and idiots who once posted a lot here but were banned or left on their own, so there have definitely been changes for the better. I don’t think we get as many total one-trick ponies and outright lunatics as we used to, or maybe they just get banned more quickly now.
Perhaps I’ve got rose-colored specs on but while I’m not pining for earlier years, I do think there was a rhythm and beat to a lot of threads when I was first reading here. I miss the adventuresome initiation threads and the pure bile that could be unloaded in the pit. (that being said, I’m getting really tired of people nowadays treating pit threads like some sort of Cussword MadLib and getting kudos for their inventive use of swearing.)
It still is tolerated of course. Indeed it is not merely tolerated but utterly permissible. The fact you say otherwise certainly shows that some conservatives on here have got very defensive.
I’ve seen an increase in the number of posters that claim the boards have gone down hill in the past few years. I think this correlates with the rise in the average length of membership.
reminisce rem·i·nisce [rem-uh-nis] verb (used without object), -nisced, -nisc·ing.
to recall past experiences, events, etc.; indulge in reminiscence.
Synonyms remember, recollect, muse.
The SDMB now is very similar indeed to when I first joined, though it went through a blip during the paid phase. I think it’s changed less than most other messageboards because the focus is on longish posts, debates and multiple posts even on silly subjects, so Facebook hasn’t had as much of an impact.
I’d say the same, though the change has not been big. The Pit might be getting back to its Heated Debate days - I’ve noticed more proper debates in there, like there used to be, as opposed to about a year ago to a year before that when it was almost all whinges and poster pittings.
With some notable exceptions (hi, jsgoddess and asimovian) there seem to be fewer matches made here lately. There used to be far more flirting.
Anybody know what happened to Satan?
This is what I was trying to say it just doesn’t make me laugh as much now, for years I came here because no matter how bad a day I had I could count on getting a laugh here, now not so much. I miss the more bawdy, outrageous pit. The pit just as well be closed down as castrated . Also the creative writing in such threads as “The horror of blimps” and “I met the Emperor of the world at McDonald’s”. I guess what I saying is that now days the Jack Dean Taylor threads would have been closed right away and that treasury of humor would have been missed. I even missed the spectacular flame outs of the likes of Freak Freely.
I was pretty friendly with him, before and after his banning, he took it pretty much in stride. I haven’t talked to him in several years, but he was doing fairly well at the time … still doing his music reporting stuff.
He is actually a really nice guy, despite his board reputation.
Wishing death on other members actually used to be allowed in the Pit: here, for example.
There were post-count parties when people reached their 1000th post.
What ever happened to the #straightdope IRC chat channel? It was a major part of the community in the early years (though I never participated). A lot of drama happened in chat, which occasionally spilled over into ugly Pit threads until the mods cracked down on that. But nowadays any thread you see mentioning #straightdope is sure to be a very ancient zombie.
By a mod, no less.
I started one, but I’d missed the window and was closed down.
Yeah, me too.
[cough]Dio[/cough]
I started lurking sometime in 2002, but for the life of me I can’t remember anymore what brought me here, just as I don’t remember why I waited until 2005 to become a member.
The board was a huge breath of fresh air for me back then. The Dope was different than any other board I was a member of; more open-ended, more open-minded, fewer restrictions, interesting personalities, a seeming higher standard of intellect, etc..
That stated, the tolerance for silliness has gone way down.
Certain topics have, seemingly and inexplicably IMO, been given a modicum of mod cover, while similar, yet opposing philosophies have not, which I find somewhat disturbing but have grown to accept.
The Dope was one of my very first online “hangouts”. I think I lurked for maybe 2 or 3 years before actually joining? I don’t remember.
I lurked because, back then, it seemed very cliquey. People already knew each other from either the IRC channel or AOL, I think? Maybe even back to the Compuserve days? In any event, it was difficult to jump into a thread without everyone jumping all over you because of this cliquishness.
Things were REALLY wild and woolly in the Pit.
Eventually I became friends with some of those people on another site. Most of them are long gone from here for various reasons. Some of them are long gone from there too. Part of me imagines their first reaction to the Dope right now would be “too large and impersonal”.
Larger, yes. Impersonal? Given that I don’t hang out here as much as I used to, I can’t answer that.
GQ has gone to shit. It used to be such a great forum - detailed answers from experts on subjects, very little incorrect information.
Now it’s garbage. Most posts are of vague wild ass guess types. People make political snipes or jokes within the first few posts. The better posters tend are probably tired of it and you see far less valuable posters there.
What they did to the pit was pointless, had no benefit, and still sucks.
We lost better quality people in the pay to post transition ('04?) than we ever got back through new people finding us through google.
I don’t want to seem too down - it’s still a great board - but the quality has declined significantly. Pretty much all based on the decisions of board management - lax moderation in GQ, inexplicable gutting of the pit. I guess the one I can’t hold against them too much is going pay to post, but it had a fairly bad result.