Not so much new blood. People come in as guests for a month, decide it’s not worth $14.95, and leave, rather than hanging around for a few more months.
Much more strict moderation. People seem to get banned much more easily now, for things that might not have gotten them banned before. I’m not going from all the information here, but that’s what I’ve seen.
As a result of #2, I am much stricter in what I will post, and where I will post it. I almost never post in GD, I will usually only post in GQ if (a) I know I can find facts to support my opinion, or (b) the thread has degenerated to a point where my wise-ass comments will be just one among dozens of others.
Bear fully in mind that none of these are bad things… just things that I have noticed as having changed since we went to PTP…
I started lurking about the time the board went pay so I can’t really compare it to pre-pay days but I have to say I have not found a more diverse or entertaining board out there. I don’t post much and can’t afford to renew right now, but I am gonna be reading and saving my pennies to get back aboard.
Now that you mention it, this place has definitely gotten worse recently. I mean, how else would you account for the sharp decline in quality that occured soon after I started posting and…
Oh.
Well, the good news is you can look forward to a totally coincidental surge in discussion quality when my guest membership runs out next month.
It depends on what you mean by “good”. I’m still here, so I’m still getting something out of it. It’s still entertaining, and informative. But, something is missing.
One thing that annoys me is, people are more likely to just wander off. They would wander off before, but just for a brief period. Now, whenever pay time comes, we lose people just because, they don’t know if they’ll post enough to justify the $14.95.
I think this board is better than it used to be, and the moderators are one reason for this.
I used to be a mod on a board that is about twice the size of this one. It’s a damned tough job, and when I see it being done well, I am both grateful and impressed.
The first day the SDMB existed must have been really, really good. I’ve seen people whining about how the board has gone downhill for the entire time I’ve been posting here, almost eight years.
IMO, it goes in cycles. I had been lamenting the sorry state of the Pit recently, and then BAM! A couple of really excellent quality trainwrecks just last week.
See, that’s what makes this place so interesting. YOU need a trainwreck in the Pit to hold your interest. I just need some good questions in GQ. Others probably read only GD.
Where else do you find this? Divided up, moderated for your pleasure, to keep out the spammers and the riff-raff and the kids, and you get posters who are mostly above average.
I haven’t noticed a dropoff in quality from the pre-pay-to-post era. The threads I’ve always enjoyed the most concern the media, so there’s always something interesting for me. I’m still learning lots of new and interesting stuff. The mods don’t seem any more heavy-handed than before.
If I’m tired of posting about topic, I simply don’t post about it. Nothing compells me to keep visiting the same types of threads over and over again.
I don’t know how tabu this subject is here, but I will take my chances and bring it up anyway. What about that “other SDMB” board that consists of (what seems to be) mostly SDMB posters, but you have to be invited, or find a sponsor, to join?
I lurked for quite a while before joining and the board really hasn’t changed for me. I don’t often post anything that would be likely to get my wrist slapped by a mod, so I don’t feel a need to second guess a post.
I miss some posters, but people wandered off a lot before p2p, you know. Just look through an old thread at how many people did a fade, ages before the boards went to pay. By and large, posters we lose because they don’t want to pay are replaced by people equally as interesting, but perhaps in different ways.
Dig back into the archives and look at the thread topics. There really weren’t better threads, more often. Actually, I’ve noticed sometimes the boards were boring and clunky. For the most part, we’ve learned from our foreposters and we’re much more sophisticated now.
As for the quality of our mods-- the ones I’ve been here to see in action have, almost without exception, flat out rocked. Sometimes the cherry on top of a thread has been when a mod came swinging through. ‘Banhattan’ anyone? It’s their job to stick their noses in and enforce the rules fairly. Don’t get upset with them for doing their job.
People who have to stick their noses in and fairly enforce rules, like parents, teachers, police officers, etc. will tell you it’s damned hard to do. It’s impossible to do it perfectly every time, and perfection of that sort is an unreasonable expectation. Armchair mods are freakin’ annoying. Not that I’m reffering to anyone in here. Do like me, find yourself a couple of threads where everybody had their panties in a twist over some mod action. You’ll see my point if you’ve got a single reasonable bone in your body.
I don’t think the boards have gone down in quality since pay-to-post, but I do miss a lot of old posters that have just disappeared. I consider this place very similar to a community, and it’s like some of my favourite people have moved out of town.
There’s a super-secret, invitation-only other Straight Dope Board? Really? They probably wouldn’t let Canadians in, anyway.
I was a strict unsigned-up lurker for about a year before actually signing up and I’d like to echo this sentiment. There is always someone, in anything, that will go on about how much better things used to be. I think the boards are great. The mods have given us a world with less “what the?” & “huh?” kind of posts or members, and I think that’s a good thing. I haven’t witnessed any ‘unjust’* bannings by the ‘heavy handed’ Mods.
In fact, let me digress by saying that I think the moderators do a fantastic job here. I frequent a board that is mainly unmoderated and between the spammers & the trolls, well…I go there less & less and come here more & more.
I was here before p2p, but only posted twice or so and only read GQ and sometimes Cafe Society.
but as for right now, I love it here! I plan on becoming a real member as soon as I can convince those with credit card powers in my household to let me pay through them. I definitely don’t want to leave. (does the Chicago Reader take cookie donations? because I can send cookies as my membership fee. I can also make jewelry…)
I think the “decline” happens when you’ve just been around a place for a long time. You start getting to know people well enough that you find things about them that bug you, you start caring more about the drama between posters, at some point, i think almost everyone goes through the “geez, are there more annoying newbies than normal at the moment, or is it just me?” phase at some point, etc.
I was here and posting regularly for a long time before p2p started. I would say there’s been some dimunition in participation since then, but it’s been balanced by a lack of participation from clueless dweebs who just breeze in to spew, then breeze right out.
I believe we did lose quite a few posters over p2p, but nothing like the exodus that Salon saw when its discussion boards went p2p.
What used to be more casual has become more official over the years with more mods and more rules, but as with any community, the larger it gets, the more rules are required to govern the masses. I’ve lurked since moving from AOL and I still enjoy every day here.
Personally, I have been pounced on by moderators more then once. I feel may of them have posted without thinking. Once, I was reprimanded for “insulting another poster”, only to have the very person I “insulted” come back and thank me for the complement. Cite. However, that doesn’t make me think that mods are not necessary. Au contraire. I think they are quite important. They just need to drink a little less coffee.
Also, I have been looking through the back archives. Back then, we had some great story tellers. Today, we still have some great story tellers. I feel that things are much the same as they always were.
Call me a classist jerk, but $14.95 is not a ton of money by most people’s reckoning. I figure it’s just the right threshhold to keep those people here who want to be here, and keep the itinerant poo-flingers mostly away. Yes, you may lose a little of that freewheeling quality that some people like, but I prefer civility myself. I think those people who fondly remember the pre-pay Golden Age are just a wee bit burnt out by the whole thing. I imagine that by the tinme I’ve been here five years, I’ll be pretty tired too.
Odd that the Mods who posted in this thread haven’t mentioned this but you’re technically posting as a sockpuppet. You should get that straightened out if you intend to stick around.
Agree with EC here. It’s more a question of quantity than quality. Threads move off a given forum front page about half as fast as they used to, so there is somewhat less turnover of discussion.
Sal Ammoniac makes good points, too.
It really all kind of depends on why (the generic) you, as an individual, are here. If certain personalities from back in the day drew you in, the SDMB will seem to have gone downhill if they’ve left.
