I agree. We don't get the thoughtful analysis and discussions that we used too. We did a poor job of educating new members on how to use this forum.
As soon as an article is posted we now get 50 to 100 posts that mostly say the same thing. There is a rush to post something witty or a recycled graphic. Many don't bother to read the full article, that has become worse now that almost everything is excerpted.
I gravitate towards threads dealing with science, technology, economics and the military. Some of the people that browse-in and start spouting uninformed opinions are down-right stupid.
My first glimmer of this was when I posted a thread a week or so ago, and it immediately became filled with graphics, songs, and stupid comments. It was a thread on dinosaurs & archeology. Someone posted a huge picture of Barney the Dinosaur (giant purple graphic). Someone else posted lyrics to a song, Alley Oop. Too bad the poster of a thread couldn't moderate their own thread, deleting unwanted posts. Only downside is, you might end up only talking to yourself. Which might not be so bad. Needless to say, all the garbage they posted were thread killers, and I immediately abandoned the thread after the song lyrics were posted. Why waste my time wading through all that stuff. Too bad we couldn't get the moderators on our side, to delete all the unwanted garbage.
Excellent point; although my theory is that everything, everywhere has gotten ruder and cruder as the MTV generation has risen. The children of the Boomers were raised with no manners. Feminism and to a certain extent, the civil rights movement, had a lot to do with trashing ALL social codes along with the no-longer-needed ones.