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PaperclipPerfector  9mo ago (text post)   2472 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for August 13, 2023

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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anyone else notice that quality of online discussion has nosedived over the past year, or just me? controlling for topic and community, it seems like just the quality of debate has gone downhill so much. whether reddit, hacker news, or elsewhere, I have observed many attempts at discussion met with curt dismissals, failures to understand, misconstructions, etc. this is why I have been spending less time on forums and reddit. Is it just me? Things could not have changed that much over past year. Maybe elon and twitter has something to do with it. or worse political climate.

My impression was that it's steadily getting worse, haven't noticed anything special in the last year.

Then again I abandoned mainstream forums a while ago.

Same here. Many niche nerd interests have turned into mainstream hobbies, and correspondingly volume has gone up and quality has gone down. Additionally cultures and attitudes have changed dramatically in many place towards homogenisation and a certain kind of professional inoffensiveness that is often mistaken for quality.

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