The board has improved beyond measure in usability and stability. Threads had to be closed down after 10 pages or so because strangeness would happen, like posts getting out of order. There were countless double, triple even quadruple posts as the program hiccuped or timed out. The board went down every day, twice a day.
Which you would think would make all the drama that went on difficult. Oh, the drama!. Attempted suicides, fake deaths, family members tearing each other apart, super-trolls v Mods. . . all that has been replaced with teeth-itch inducing earnestness and think-of-the-childrenitis. I cannot imagine Homer’s mushroom thread or Freak Freely’s freak-out thread remaining open for long today.
Some, those who had a modicum of intellectual honesty at least, decided to change their viewpoints instead (Senor Beef for ex.).
As I intimated above, what passes for conservatism in this country has changed a ton in the last dozen years or so; said GOP paradigm has yes become much less tolerated because of how much it has shifted rightward, in some aspects into the realm of insanity, and rightly so. There are still a few conservatives who debate from a position of honesty, even if in general they have stuck by their guns, but they are outweighed by the loons.
I guess I am one of the few who applaud the recent crackdowns on trolls and rigid abusive demagogues of various sorts; I’ve rarely found the contributions of these types of posters “amusing”, as some of you apparently do. They are invariably strident one-note players who sooner or later run their viewpoints into the ground, and get what they deserve. Even if they post something in a “kinder and gentler” context, my vivid memories of their general jerkasshattery will nonetheless color my perception of their posts (assuming I haven’t ignored them by then). If the banhammer hadn’t come out of mothballs like it has recently I doubt I would still be here-reading their kind of endless tripe I find extremely tedious.
I (2006) haven’t been here long enough to note and mourn changes in things like the Pit, GQ, or the alleged decline in the overall Humor Quotient (seems to me that we still get a reasonably healthy dose of the latter <shrug>).
Not a huge amount from my POV (joined 2004), but I’ve never been that personally engaged in the boards so wouldn’t be switched on to how the pit has changed, say, or how the mods are running the place into the ground / really straightening shit out etc.
Agree that GQ has deteriorated a bit - gone to shit is way OTT, but there does seem to be a small nucleus of posters there who are determined to suck balls. Inane questions and persistently low quality answers, but not quite blatant enough for the mods to tell them to get tae fuck. Some of the dumber questioners have been here so long that they’re part of the furniture in any case.
GD seems a bit played out, which is natural. Still a good example of internet debating though - you read the general forum on other boards, even high quality ones, and the quality of discourse is awful.
The game room sounded like a great idea at the time - I’m a sports fan so gathering up all the threads in one place made sense and might promote more sports discussion. It’s too quiet, though. Some great posters there but it’s not active enough to be worth checking out all that often (IMHO). If you hate sports I guess it’s been a massive success, as all the threads are now quarantined in the one place.
This. I really miss this. I don’t remember who had the first Dopefest - the Chicago Dopers or the SF Dopers. It was pretty close if I remember right. I’m also kinda bummed at how many of the B.A.D.'s don’t post anymore. I especially miss the guy who used to post under something like white_lightning. (Blanking on his real name now - so long ago. Wanna say it was Alex.) I used to look forward to seeing him at the fests. One time he was distraught over his girlfriend breaking up with him so I took him out and got him blotto and we came back to my place and watched Mystery Science Theater 3000 until we were both laughing so hard we cried. I wonder where he is and if he ever thinks of that. Well, now I’m just being weird and maudlin, but I don’t understand people who think you can’t meet real friends online.
(Every time I see your screen name I’m trying to remember if we met or not. It would’ve been so long ago I don’t remember. I want to say we did?)
Interesting how pretty much everyone who is still around today thought what he was doing was abhorrent. Surprising how many thought it was no big deal.
The GR seems more active than ever-at any given time we’ve got discussions of most of the major sports, a number of board games are going on, threads about various video games, and several other things. I’ve actually noticed an uptick in the activity level in there lately-surpassing GD at least and rivaling IMHO and MPSIMS.