General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Why is DU's popularity waning? (Title edited, explanation within.) [View all]laundry_queen
(8,646 posts)I think this is the biggest problem. Yes there are others...but they are all exacerbated by the issue with personal attacks. There are posters here who have their 'pet' topic and hell hath no fury like one of those posters when they are disagreed with. Not only do they do personal attacks, they call all their like-minded buddies to attack and swarm as well. And this happens with nearly every topic and includes a very wide range of posters. Those kinds of attacks used to be promptly deleted - and large, bickering subthreads were also usually taken out. So a lot of those people just didn't bother. If you wanted to talk about, for instance, conspiracies...the posters who disagreed with it generally stayed out of the thread or they made a conscious effort to assemble a great, respectful counter argument. Now, nothing is really deleted (and I personally think a 'hide' is silly since you can click and see it - I don't see how this helps anything) and the jury system is a crapshoot. So, those who are too lazy or nasty to compile a compelling argument are the ones who now flood the threads. And it forces everyone else who wants to have serious discussions out because they are not going to spend time on a thoughtful post only to have it turn into a shit-flinging fight.
So yeah, I think personal attacks being allowed to stand is the main issue here.