To the DUers who constantly bemoan: what happened to DU?

[Igel]

2. It's "capisci."

Non capisco.

It's not typically a disagreement over ideas. Those have always been here. The break really came last year with all the "if you're not with me then you're obviously for all things evil and bad and against all things sound and good ... against me and what I think, in other words."

It was topic by topic. And it was not only personal, it was played as personal. (Most people hold their beliefs fairly tightly but they were offensive.) Moreover, there were groups.

A lot of people that started reasonable threads vanished. Some just had it. Others were canned. It used to be that you'd have to check back every few hours to see everything in Latest Breaking News except maybe on Sunday. Politics would have several screenfulls per day. And general discussion wasn't the lounge, with a lot of people making single-post call outs that weren't canned.

DU's a sadder place to be. It became less diverse, more riven, and overall a coarser, meaner and pettier place. (Even if some like OldLeftyLawyer could just flay people alive adroitly.)