How true! Even within this thread we can’t avoid it. 
Yeah. I was going to jump in with “Point proven” but I figured I’d stay out of it.
I’ve been here for over 23 years. Some periods more active than others. Not a charter member, I think I came over here from another message board that I was active on (that died a slow painful death).
There is an aspect of the SDMB that hasn’t changed (which is somewhat a character trait of all message boards, especially with anonymous user names), posters can be emboldened by their anonymity, and forget the common decencies of how human beings in the real world interact. Don’t get me wrong, not all posters are like this, but most have their online persona which I believe is vagary of their true authentic selves. Most honor the “don’t be a jerk” rule, but you can be hard edged, less civil, dogmatic, etc. and still avoid being a jerk. It is for this reason that rationale discussions are somewhat limited. In my personal circles, the don’t be a jerk expectation is too low a bar for me to want to be friends with you. But for online relationships, I guess it will do. I say all of this knowing that I’m just as guilty of behaving this way here as many of you are.
The ways it has changed are for the betterment and for the worse, both of which have been already expressed. More lighthearted in the early years, but also more wide open (think burning man) from a view perspective. Perspectives have been tightened up with less tolerance for jerkish behavior. In some respects I miss the wide openess. I have always been able to not let my emotions become embroiled just because someone disagreed with me, regardless of how stupid I thought they were…they’re just strangers on the internet…who cares.
Yet, there is comfort in knowing that people with certain user names and now avatars, are going to be consistent in the views they share, their perspectives on new events - a pandemic, an election, a recession, death of fellow poster, etc.
The SDMB is a community whether we think it is or not.
Whoa. So your username is “so lost”? I’ve always parsed it as “solo-st”, as in “soloist”. This changes everything. 
(Same reaction I had when I learned that @puzzlegal was “puzzle gal”, not “puzz legal”.)
Yeah, you and at least a half-dozen other Dopers over the years. I’ve always been terrible at coming up with usernames, and I somewhat regret ‘solost’ 
Ha, yeah, the misunderstandings that can result from turning two words into a single portmanteau name. At least ‘puzzlegal’ isn’t nearly as unfortunate to misread as a famous example from the early days of the internet, when the company Experts Exchange proudly registered their brand new URL:
‘expertsexchange[dot]com’.
@Irishman, may honor ever attend his name, used to do detailed episode recaps for every season of Syfy’s reality show Face Off. Since that was then appointment TV for Mrs. SMV and I, I always appreciated his work, and enthusiastically participated in his threads.
Oh yeah, good old ‘I, Rishman’.
The Dope had and still has a rigor to it that no other discussion board seems to have. I have (very slowly) learned that sloppiness will get me barked at, and that is a good thing.
That doesn’t seem to have changed.
The reason, in my opinion, that conservative viewpoints are challenged is mainly because they are so challengeable. Few seem willing to make reasonable arguments for their positions but fall back on exactly the kind of sloppy easily debunked rationales that the Dope so excels at poking holes in. Seems to me that in former days the conservatives were a lot harder to dismiss.
I do NOT miss the constant misogyny and hateful jokes of yore, nor the pile-on defensiveness about them. Not one single particle, I left for quite some time exactly because of them, and was one of the few women who trickled back.
I truly dislike the self-congratulatory virulent anti-religious, anti-spiritual tone, which has driven a whole other set of people away. That has not changed, and is in the same place right now that sexism and racism were back when: if you don’t like it, don’t read the thread. Which is what I try to do.
Yes, back then I dedicated hours to the board. I enjoyed summarizing and sharing my favorite shows and my takes.
Things have changed. For starters, I just have a whole lot less energy. I don’t follow much TV anymore. I shifted careers and my job is more physically demanding.
And I just kinda lost interest.
I poke around a few threads still, but nothing like I used to do.
I understand. Life happens. But I greatly appreciated your efforts in those threads.
that’s an interesting angle …
many posters have no idea / feedback? on how appreciated their inputs are …
Over the years I’ve shouted out a couple of posters who have especially entertained me or made me think: @iiandyiiii, @Kimstu, @Elendil_s_Heir. @Prof.Pepperwinkle, for his apparently endless stream of Dad jokes, which I’ve shamelessly stolen and recycled, to much groaning and abuse.
Glad to be of service.
Attaboy!
We’ve certainly had “Who do you especially enjoy / appreciate as a poster?” threads. It’s been a couple of years. We’ve also had “Who is gone now that you really miss?” threads.
But @Al128’s larger point is well-taken. When you quote somebody or reply to them, opening with an explicit “thank you” for what they wrote or how well they wrote it is a nice touch that all of us could probably stand to do more often.
And with that, thank you @Al128 for pointing this out.
This is as good a place as any to begin rectifying that.
I have enjoyed and learned a great deal over the years from @Johanna , @Wendell_Wagner , and @Acsenray 's posts about language and phonetics. I wonder if Johanna will recall the “Pelasgians” thread?
I don’t remember the poster’s name, but he complained that all news were flawed because they never reported the “Who, What, When, Where or Why.” I told him with all the resources the internet had to offer, all he had to do was search a topic and he might find a news source he’d prefer.
I supplied an example of two different news sites and the coverage of the same topic, and populated the Who, What, When, Where and Why fields.
In another rant, he again complained that all news were flawed, and that were only 2 examples of sites providing “Who, What, When, Where or Why.”
I tried to be nice and patient. Why even bother?
Exactly this, the board is now not as welcoming bigots and sexists and is more welcoming of a larger swath of people. I’m ok with that trade.
Thank you for the kind words!
I actually think those “who is your favorite poster” type of threads can promote cliquishness and hurt feelings. To me, they are the message board equivalent of those “most popular” votes in high school. Ugh!
The OP mentions that there were more “characters” in the early days. I would expand on that and say there were many more drama queens/drama kings and borderline personality disorders on display. We used to have frenzied, crazy, gossipy threads in which true stories of people’s unstable lives and questionable decision-making unfolded. Veritable soap operas.
For better or worse, those kinds of threads have gone away. Now threads that superficially resemble them come mostly from trolls, and attract little attention. Posters often recognize that they’re being trolled, or even if they fall for the story, it’s just not as interesting to hear about some random person’s travails as it is to follow along with posters that you actually “know” from long-term association on the board.