[RedWing9]

More concerning, for the past few months I have been unable to even obtain rational discourse and commentary on many routine threads and issues without being personally maligned and attacked - many times out of the blue and on topics unrelated to the given thread - by a small, petty-minded, and vitriolic group of posters who conduct themselves in a manner unbefitting of what this forum used to be when I joined in 1999, and do so with apparent impunity.

I agree, though I haven't left yet. I have curtailed my posting since early 2001 to almost nothing.

Reading the threads is not typically what I come here to do anymore. I rarely go past the article and 1-4 posts before I go back and select another one. It seems no one wants to discuss the article as much as they want to scream about it.

[Madeleine Ward]

I'm new in the last 6 months.

My impression of this site is that the members do a fantastic job of finding great articles and posting them. I can stay on top of anything I like on this site.

The discussion is pretty non-substantive, though. I characterize responses as either short quips or rants. Like RedWing9, I pick the article, read it, and then maybe read 4 responses, and then move on. I rarely engage in the discussion.

I was part of another forum that went this way--lots of really great discussion, the site became more and more popular, and then it disintegrated. My opinion is that if the people who engage in really substantive debate leave a forum, there is no one left to show others what the forum is supposed to be.