IS IT GETTING MEAN AROUND HERE??

intemperate criticisms, is this the same as lies?

No, its different.

There is a big difference in free speech allowed on the forum while continuing to allow a blatant ignorant Bogan to spew their vile bullshit here. It does nothing for this site but keep posters from coming back which is why this sites popularity has dropped off quite a bit over the last two years. I’m done for now.

Personal attacks (AKA intolerance) are the main problem, not ignorance nor the giving voice to unpopular ideas. Most people can handle hearing ideas that they dont like, and putting up with stupid people, what they are not going to handle is unfriendliness, lack of consideration, lack of empathy, lack of minimal civility.....that is what makes people feel unwelcome here, makes them decide that this is not the kind of place that they wish to hang out in.

We have always had too many un self aware people here who seem to have as their major agenda to get their biases supported. Very rarely do they seem even open to the idea that their opinions are often illogical and unsupported by evidence biases, often trivial. What we see here so often is on par with constantly starting knife fights over which is the best flavor of ice cream.

Most of the smart wise people that I came here to hear have long since gotten bored and departed.

What happened in the 4th quarter of last year ? A large number seem to have left....forced to leave ?

dont know but I do know that people leaving is only part of the problem, the bigger problem is that we dont attract new blood. The mean spirited culture war is almost the entire reason. If tolerance does not make a showing soon this place is dead.

This place needs a big cleanup .
Possible options :
1. delete any posts that have a personal; attack in them . Just delete the whole post .
2. Ban discussion of religion or politics . It lowers the whole science part of the forum .
3. Ban swearing .
4. Do away with thumbing . Some of the more delicate left whingers here find it hurts their feelys to have one thumb down, and its purpose is to intimidate people anyway .

I have disagreed with you on a couple of occasions . I cant recall getting into a fight over anything . Have you noticed all your posts are so bad (like mine) that everyone of them gets marked down ? And Bill, and ob1 .

THe loudest members have been of the opinion that the solution is to cleanse the place of opinions that they dont agree with. And they seem willing to kill the place out of spite if they dont get what they want, which they have mostly not (though that JTT is gone makes me wonder how much too much credit I am giving Robert for maintaining an open marketplace of ideas).

does not happen much anymore, fatigue seems to have set in. Or maybe those doing it wised up and realized that I mean what I say when I say that negative votes tell me that I am on to something. Love and hate are very close to being the same thing, when it comes to ideas either reaction is a great indicator of truth.

Everything runs down over time. The traectory of biological life through vigorous youth, maturity and decay is also quite evident in most human organizations -- cultures, nations, corporations, clubs and groups of all kinds stop renewing themselves, become stale and die away. Such a death may be impossible to prevent in the case of A2K, as in many other like things.

I suppose it is possible to identify a number of causitive factors (or perhaps they are instead merely symptoms of the ongoing decay). Long term members get tired of each other and settle into permanent opposition; name-calling and invective replace dialogue and constructive disagreement - and that's not a good way to attract new participants or even interest in the subjects being discussed, whatever they may be.

I do believe it is very telling that this thread which at its start appeared to be an effort to seriously discuss this aspect of A2K, so quickly degenerated to a closed (and truly very childish) dialogue among mutually supportive critics, of their favorite boogeymen. Personal attacks quickly replaced any expressions of potentially useful disagreement, and tolerance in any form quickly disappeared.

There was a time when vigorous and spirited debates occured here even on subjects like politics and religion. That doesn't occur any more. More and more threads appear deliberately designed to attract only people of like mind about various issues and to vigorously exclude those who disagree. That seems to me to be the antithesis of what the site should be about. Growing intolerance will truly be the death of A2K.

In the larger scheme of things this isn't very important, and A2K can fade away without any detectable effect on an indifferent world.

I have given up on the site for fairly long stretches of time over the past two years, though each time coming back for a look and staying a while. Each time a few month's exposure has wearied me of it all and I left again.

There's a fairly long list of frequent posters who contributed as great deal of interest in the site who have left and are seen here no more. We can't know what motivated them, but it is likely that some of these factors influenced some (or many) of them.

Fully agree. I recall, in the early days we could argue like partisans but it never got personal. I think your point of attracting "like minds" is a thing Ive seen all over the interweb. Its gotten kinda dicey even on gardening boards. ("OH YEH?!?! ANY IDIOT KNOWS THAT MANDEVILLA ARE HARDIER THAN CREPE MYRTLE""). I saw that kind of disagreement on one of the gardening sites I visit.
Ive found that many of the really intense subject boards, like Civil War History, trades mostly to zealots who mostly have a very small life outside the board.

I travel with a professional geo board an Its really monitored. It has a disciplinary "board" thats stronger than the one governing your PE.

A2K has never been a site that oversees with a strong arm. If it was, many of us would have been long gone.
I dont foresee the decline of civilization with all this. I believe that were in between one form of communication and we will , maybe in our lives, see another whole new model for interaction.

Maybe thats whats on a horizon. All the new gizmoos being grown out of "Apps" , many have communications capabilities.
Ive even submitted notebook pictures and site data accompanying Google sat pictures to folks in real time.
For me, a relative luddite, thats big stuff, and maybe, just maybe, actually KNOWING the people we communicate with, will begin to change and eliminate the cowardly confrontations that we all get pissed at.

You see, when we dont require any information about ourselves and we remain an avatar, the cowards will continue the rants and name calling and engage in idiotic argument.

I agree with this and the other stuff you and George were discussing. Although I've been an A2K member for a long time, I've only become active since getting tired of a forum in which moderation was frequent, swift and often severe. I think much of the current state of affairs here can easily be seen from the standpoint of group dynamics and changes in the wider online environment. I don't see anything to be alarmed about, really. Nothing stays the same for very long, that I know of.

A big reason political threads have changed in my view is so many are pushing the Teaparty line. I can't speak for anybody else, but I have zero respect for teabaggers and I will not pretend I do. That's the biggest reason I try to respond mostly to people who agree with me.