I think for me the tone has changed, as well as the pace. As many other posters have said, I think the board has gotten older, with fewer new (younger) posters and mostly skewing older these days. I remember the nearly frantic pace of threads before, with people firing back replies in droves. There were more conservative posters before as well I think, as well as more outright left wing ones. These days, it seems like only a few conservatives left, not that many left wingers, and more folks who aren’t really that well defined by left/right politics. I don’t know if there is more or less intolerance…to me, it’s more about an almost corporate culture that we have now that was missing before, but now the sides seem more cast in stone when there are sides. Though that might be me viewing back through rose colored glasses, though I definitely recall some of the really nasty fights and issues in the old days.
The biggest thing is, to me, the board seems to slowly be dying and winding down. Sort of like myself I guess. It will be sad if it ever stops, for me anyway, as I’ve put a lot of myself into this place, and while that probably doesn’t mean much to others it does to me. Maybe the board will get a new lease on life if media changes or there are some new innovations that we use to bring new life to the board in some new phase, but that doesn’t seem the trajectory for me…and, like I said, that makes me a bit sad.
How much of it is a matter of attention span, and how much of it is because people are accessing the SDMB (and the rest of the internet) on their phones more and more, and a long post looks even longer on a tiny screen, and it’s hard to write a several-paragraph, carefully-composed post when you don’t have a real keyboard to type on?
The willingness to explain, although mostly explain once again, seems to have dropped off a bit.
I was one of the frequent “religious” thread contributors when I came here “Back in the Day.”
I read a lot of fairly well thought out positions on theological matters, and recall atheists calling anti-god ranters for their broken logic on many occasions. I was only occasionally verbally assaulted for
statements on faith, and more often than not it was over my frequent assertion that I would never willingly try to prove my faith to anyone. I admit it makes it hard to argue with me, but being uninterested in proving anything isn’t a debate tactic to me, it’s an element of belief.
The political dichotomy has gotten quite a bit wider, and seems like lots of strumming on not too many strings. That was a lot better when I was last here. People made their reasons for positions on actual conservatism, or liberalism much more clear. Now it’s just cold dead hand on our guns, and Trump trump trump trump.
I often mentioned to friends who asked me why I read the board that within an hour, if you asked an abstruse question about physics, or art, or astronomy, or fashion, you would get an answer from someone who actually worked in the field. And the arguments about topology were . . . sublime.
Yeah, the fight against ignorance is not yet won. Looks to me like ignorance is fighting back more.
Tris
Do not hide your light under a bushel. Unless it’s made of firebrick, or your light is really dim.
The mods have gotten faster over the years, either throwing the whole thread in the Pit, or closing it entirely at an earlier stage of meltdown, particularly if a bunch of brand-new posters suddenly appear.
Ha! I still have a physical keyboard on my phone! BlackBerry KeyOne, the callouses on my fingers and thumbs from playing bass and guitar make me want to smash touchscreens! Plus, there’s not much in the way of substitutes in the world of tactile feel WRT to a physical keyboard. But, I don’t normally peruse the Dope on my phone, because it wastes too much of my time at home. I have stuff to do, and work/fun is more important than hanging out on my phone with you folks I don’t know in an intimate sense, no matter how much I love ya.
Yes, I do text in complete sentences, why do you ask?
But, I used to spend quite a bit of time on here from my computer when I worked nights. It was almost hard to keep up with the place even with the large amounts of slack I threw at it. It’s not quite as hard now, even though I don’t use this as a reason to slack at work now. I still don’t really keep up with the place, though.
So, the point of my story? I dunno, we’ve slowed down, it seems. I agree that the place isn’t as frantic as it was even just five years ago. However, some of that is due to less [DEL]crazy[/DEL] [DEL]delusional[/DEL] passionate (?) folks posting rampantly. Either new members of the type have found other places to plague, or long time adherents to some idea or another that they can’t let go have been banned, but there are fewer crazy folks polluting the place (for good and ill). Again, hail the mods. Hopefully we can keep building on quality, and not go the way of the dodo. Heck, this is one of the few places where I’ve seen people actually discuss how you can address the divides in the country it’s hosted in, and on occasion the divisions in other countries and between them. It’s not much, but it’s there, and this is still one of the few places you can do it without being almost instantly drowned out by crazy folks.
Ah, kunilou, that was it! I knew there was some old-timer who used that Superman avatar, and then started seeing a 99er with a name I didn’t recognize using the same avatar, so I figured it had to be the same person, but I couldn’t remember what the old name would have been, and it takes a long time to dig through posts to find one quoting by name.
I don’t read MPSIMS much, so it didn’t occur to me that there’d be a thread announcing the change.
As a snopes message board refugee new to this board, it’s really interesting to see people talk about how much things have slowed down here. My first impression was of how busy this place is, like snopes was ten years ago! The heyday of message boards seems to have passed, but I’m grateful this one is still around, and I wish I’d found my way here sooner.
