No. I'd say the whole internet felt different 10+ years ago. Including this, what people are on here and how they behave. And I'd day the average intellect is different. But that could also be me growing up.
I really enjoyed various communities on usenet. But most of my favouites moved to FB and usenet is now a cesspit of spam.
I learned a hell of lot from alt.solar.pv and alt.energy.renewable, and made some great connections via aus.motorcycles.
But I wouldn't bother going there today, even in one of the few remaining feeds.
It's different but the same. We used to get hit by the conservative bury brigades. Now, we get people actually trying to steer the narrative with somewhat thoughtful bad faith arguments.
It's far more insidious now, and takes vigilance to shut down.
I don't remember that many political arguments. At least not this way conservative<->progressive. I remember them mostly from the comment section of news articles and YouTube videos (since YT has been a thing) and of course Twitter. But less so from dedicated discussion places like forums and such. But my perspective is probably skewed. I wasn't really part of early Reddit. And I'm not American and we have/had different discussions here. Well... Maybe I wasn't that interested in political discussions on the internet when I was young(er). But the places I used to frequent were more focused on specific topics, technology and not about ideology (apart from free software ideology.)
But trolling, flaming, baiting etc has been part of internet culture for a long time. I don't remember how they called brigading before Reddit. I think that is a term I learned in the last few years.
No. I'd say the whole internet felt different 10+ years ago. Including this, what people are on here and how they behave. And I'd day the average intellect is different. But that could also be me growing up.
I really enjoyed various communities on usenet. But most of my favouites moved to FB and usenet is now a cesspit of spam. I learned a hell of lot from alt.solar.pv and alt.energy.renewable, and made some great connections via aus.motorcycles. But I wouldn't bother going there today, even in one of the few remaining feeds.
It's different but the same. We used to get hit by the conservative bury brigades. Now, we get people actually trying to steer the narrative with somewhat thoughtful bad faith arguments.
It's far more insidious now, and takes vigilance to shut down.
I don't remember that many political arguments. At least not this way conservative<->progressive. I remember them mostly from the comment section of news articles and YouTube videos (since YT has been a thing) and of course Twitter. But less so from dedicated discussion places like forums and such. But my perspective is probably skewed. I wasn't really part of early Reddit. And I'm not American and we have/had different discussions here. Well... Maybe I wasn't that interested in political discussions on the internet when I was young(er). But the places I used to frequent were more focused on specific topics, technology and not about ideology (apart from free software ideology.)
But trolling, flaming, baiting etc has been part of internet culture for a long time. I don't remember how they called brigading before Reddit. I think that is a term I learned in the last few years.