It's an interesting stat, isn't it?

If you look on vDip you can find my statistics in a place where I actually care about them :)

Tolstoy, I think you're mistaken about your description of the forum's past membership. The problem wasn't that people were 9/11 conspiracy theorists, or perverts, or Stalinists, or whatever krellin is. The problem is, many of those people were jerks incapable of having a polite conversation. Maybe people like you don't like the forum as much because there's less back and forth, but lots of people like me stopped liking the forum because everyone was awful.

As I may have been one of the extremists,and I repeat MAY--I agree that it's better now. This site has moved to being a predominantly diplomacy site and I applaud that

Meh, ssorenn was more of a wanna-be extremist :-)

there are plenty of other places to view unfiltered internet. Most of the time, I prefer to not stare into that abyss. especially when at work. I enjoy this forum.

Actually ishirkmywork makes a useful point. I can now check webDip at work, whereas a year or two ago, that was usually impossible because the torrent of bile on the forum used to send my work internet's obscenity filter nuts.

You missed what this place was though. The Wild West doesn't seem to actually cover it :)).
As I dont mind flinging shit, and there's always a place for that, I much prefer this site like this.

I actually think the beauty was exactly that webdip isn't the first place some random extremist is going to look. You're not surrounded by people who went looking for a website where they can express extreme views, you're surrounded by people with extreme views who see a topic while playing a game and decide they want to enter.
There's also enough normal people around to give you some sense of what's actually insane and what isn't.

Extremist viewpoints were never really a problem. Extremist confrontations between users were.

YMMV depending on your definition of "extremist."

Kuta Bear makes a good point. It was the banter after points were made that most frowned upon.

ss: not when the point being made was the desire for children to die, and the other garbage that brought about the change.

@trip, yes there were a few exceptions from Dip Shit Mapleleaf. But it seemed to
Me, it became the personal attacks that came from the different viewpoints on topics. You are correct though that some were the topic.

I'm not sure "more moderation" is what caused that anyway. I wasn't a moderator before the forum changes, but from what I noticed then, I think the mods had to get involved a lot more often than we have to now. There was a period of dramatic change, but the entire community, minus a single handful of individuals no longer on this forum, has embraced the changes in the end, and I think the site is a far more positive place as a result.

When potential new members join a site, I think they're much more likely to stay on it if their first impression is of a forum calmly discussing Diplomacy or *politely* discussing the news, than if their first impression was the sort of rabid debate with extreme hyperbole and vitriol thrown about that it used to be.

I also don't think that the forum is now solely home to "centre-lefties regurgitating jokes"... I for one am no centre-lefty, though I rarely have time for prolonged debates here. There's still a varied array of views, but people can civilly discuss the views now, rather than having a ratio of 1 pt view: 5 pts ad hominem.

The forum has seen its atmosphere transformed from that of an 18th Century inn by the waterfront in some Caribbean port city, to a modern metropolitan wine bar. If you listen carefully you can almost hear the coffee machine...

although occasionally certain webdip players stumble into that wine-bar, naked, covered in refuse, and defecate in the middle of the floor. Which keeps things the appropriate amount of interesting, i think.

@Hellenic Riot

"...the entire community, minus a single handful of individuals no longer on this forum, has embraced the changes in the end..."

This is an outright fiction.

I'd call it a small overstatement.

Is it? Whether begrudgingly accepting it or not, people are not constantly jumping over the line. Times have moved on.

Fuck you, Al Swearengen, I like the forum better this way, and you're a piece of shit for disagreeing with me. I'm not going to track you down, cut off your head, and make your skin into a set of cushion covers, but I'd like to.


There.... does that feel better? All nostalgic, like?

To clarify: it was a small portion back then, maybe a percent. Add to that that people have a tendency to overestimate the amount of people sharing their POV as well as the fact that people sharing our opinion have been more likely to leave for obvious reasons and it was probably nowhere near a percent.

I EMBRACE CHANGE

Adapt or die.

If you scroll down the first page of the forum its a majority Diplomacy related threads - rules interpretations, tournaments, SOW - and the rest is pretty much Mafia. I don't know if the charged political threads went away so much as got replaced by Mafia.

Well as someone who does not really participate in games or the forum here, following the forum has indeed become far less interesting since that ban wave last year...

So post something interesting!

Boring!

Well Mapledick, thucy, draugner, and krellin kept the the masses stimulated with debotchery

just kidding