GD has always been a bit, well… ‘GD’.
Its generally a right-leaning forum and, if you go back far enough, used to be a home for some overtly offensive content.
So if you’re using those ‘early days’ within your frame of reference of ‘a shadow of its former self’ then yes, it has certainly become less extreme than it used to be.
I think if you go back even five years ago, the level of discussion around most topics was less aggressive and confrontational. The polarisation of the political landscape in the US and the UK, combined with the influence of social media, has definitely changed the way most topics are debated.
Anyone left of centre is a whining ******* communist and anyone right of centre is a racist Nazi sympathiser — there’s no room for reasoned debate anymore, it’s all about point-scoring oneupmanship.
As a result, people either give up completely or, my personal theory; there’s a bit of self-selection going on.
It seems to me that GD and SC are turning into homes for some of the more right/left leaning members respectively (or possibly more accurately pro/anti-Brexit) and this is turning them both into echo chambers.
Obviously there is still some crossover, but I would suggest that any decline in quality of GD is due to the lack of diversity of views being expressed, and when they are expressed it’s often in a hostile atmosphere (from both sides, please don’t think I’m putting all of the blame on one group).
I think it’s a bit of the above and the fact that a lot of the more ‘interesting’ characters have left or been perma’d.
)
cracked a grin!