It seems it used to be a lot more fun and way bitchier.
So do you like it more now or before just anyone could post
In the 12 years since I first started visiting this site, I suspect I’ve changed more than the SDMB has.
I’m fine with what it is now. And I’m glad we went back to anyone being able to sign up and post, without having to pay for the privilege to do so for longer than a month.
I joined here about a year before you did. you’re less of an authority on the quality of this place than I am. I won’t pass judgment. I suggest that you don’t either.
It is what it is.
Well, in a similar thread going on over in The Pit, we decided that… well, we didn’t decide anything, but those of us who’ve been lurking since the McCarthy Administration are contending that it started going downhill right after we started hanging out here.
Cracked me up when someone said “This place is going to be a complete waste of time in a few more years”.
Like it isn’t now.
But that’s what I’ve always liked about it, in the 90s, the Oughts, and now.
It ebbs and flows. I’ve been a regular coming up on 11 years now, and if I really think about it, not too much has changed, except for losing some prolific stalwarts (warts and all) over the years, The Pit becoming more tame, and the mix of personalities is always a changing variable.
Sometimes it’s what I bring to it, too. When life is really busy, I tend to lurk more, or I’m too preoccupied to participate or even dwell in the more mundane threads I’d usually distract myself with.
Then, if I’m bored or have a light week, I’ll peruse this place up and down, and if I’m lucky, I’ll hit a few threads that are interesting to me, or find a really bizarre topic or fun train-wreck (I tend to enjoy a good drive-by crackpot in GD that goes on for pages. Some people are fascinating in what they believe and how they defend it).
I think the nature of the beast at a place like this, is it gets a bit stuffy and pedantic around here. I love it when the weird and irreverent breaks out. I’m here for general discussion, opinions, banter, and the occasional “Huh, shit, I never knew that.”
After coming here every day for the past decade, there’s very few topics that haven’t been done to death, and few and far between are some really good questions which you couldn’t find out just by using Google.
Again, ebb and flow.
Join has nada to do with lurking.
Not judging.
Asking for opinions.
I think it went a bit downhill when it went pay-to-post, and picked up after it went free again.
I’ve lurked for about a decade, and started posting seriously a few months ago…
I think the debate forums are a little better today than in past. A little more rational, a little more polite. The quality of the arguments seems better. Fewer really stupid arguments, more nuance, more context.
Even the Pit seems more rational! It’s incredibly rude, but it is more than the cuss-word fest that it used to be.
Anyway… An opinion.
I thought it improved tremendously in October of 2009.
And then unfortunately went right back down in November of 2009.
There! Ya happy now, mewl dear?;)
I think the only real change has been to GQ. As the internet has gotten larger and people have become more savy about finding the stuff they’re interested there, the number of questions that are easier to answer just by googling rather then asking a bunch of anonymous schmucks on a Message Board has gone down.
There’s definitely been a decrease in the number of posts per day since I started lurking many, many years ago. (I lurked for years before I ever signed up.) Used to be if I went 8 hours without checking, I’d have 2 or 3 pages of new posts to skim through.
I didn’t check the boards from Friday night until this morning, and none of the forums have new posts past the first page.
It’s not just the SDMB though. I lurk on many different messageboards, and I’ve noticed a decrease in posts on all of them. My WAG is with the advent of twitter and facebook, people are moving away from old style messageboards.
I’ve been here eight years longer than that. Do I get to be even more extra-specially obnoxious?
Better? Worse?
This place just is. I have found it to be an extremely consistent environment over the past few years. It attracts a certain sort of snarky geek, and while individuals come and go the culture is well established.
I predict these boards wil stil be going on, text-only and all, well after all the kids have gotten tired of stupid cat pictures and animated ponies.
The opposite of this.
It seemed like back in the day, there were more crazy posters. Posters you really loved to hate. They were so over-the-top you could pretend they were caricatures. Not exactly trolls. More like figments of your wild imagination.
Now, it doesn’t seem to take much for crazy posters to get banned and disappear forever.
I like it. I learn something new most weeks, if I’m paying attention. I like the newer Elections forum, as it seems to be mostly civil discussion of current politics instead of the rabid frothing that typifies most discussions of that sort. I continue to find answers to technical questions that I have, even though they may have been asked/answered before, and I feel that I can still contribute to others’ questions on various topics. Trolls are usually sorted out in short order, thanks to Mod diligence, and assholery is confined to a select few. Better or worse, I couldn’t say; but to me it’s still worthwhile to check in a few times a day.
No it isn’t!