reply to post by Rasobasi420
Hey Ras,
I can confirm that, as one individual member who has been around awhile, the over-all quality of posts and threads has declined remarkably. There are
still a lot of top-shelf people & threads being started, don't get me wrong; but when you take in the totality of the new threads being started and
the ensuing posts to those threads, there is a distinct drop in the number of solid, thought-provoking contributions, compared with, say, even a year
or so ago. And you are spot on, IMO, on the level of hatred and bigotry being expressed in many, many posts by so-called "members" who seem to come
and go in the wink of an eye.
It has become so distressing to me that I have found myself visiting ATS much less often than I used to and I'm far less likely to become involved in
the "dialog" of certain threads, (even ones that I have a profound interest in), simply because that in order to make my thoughts or opinions on the
subject understood takes a lot more energy than it's worth. It's reached the point that even fact-filled and research-based rebuttals no longer can
turn the tide of ignorance. In short, it just makes me extremely tired.
I have thought about leaving ATS altogether and just resigning myself to the fact that no forum, no matter how interesting or thought-provoking is
worth that kind of drain on my psyche; and yet, here I still am.

Just when I think I'm out for good, I just get pulled right back in. So, I
decided that I will only give ATS an hour of my time each day and some days I don't visit at all, or visit but don't post.
I guess it boils down to the fact that I have invested four years of my life in this site, (three as a member), and I just don't want to believe that
the once, "love of my life",(in a website sense), won't eventually come to her senses.
To quote Forrest Gump, "..and that's all I have to say about that".
[edit on 6/24/2008 by lightseeker]