Originally Posted by
Isoverity
A lot of activity has become an exercise of attempting to be engaged without really being able to so - and I think people actually want to be engaged but just hit dead ends with their enthusiasm due to "buffering" mechanisms built into the forum structure.
I want to second this. I can't say much about how it used to be, because I'm still something of a fresh face here, but I do notice the buffering effect you've mentioned. I catch myself not posting threads or, sometimes, answering other people's posts, because at some point I've gotten a sense that the forums are more fragile than they probably really are (if, indeed, that's even what you're getting at). I don't intend that as a negative criticism of the site itself; I can understand constructing the rules system with an eye toward promoting protection and a sense of safety. But I do think that the insular feeling reallifetime mentions is a natural unfolding of that construction. Cliques, which are a social safety net in and of themselves, are a separate problem, I think, though I can see how they'd feed into a sense of isolation or trepidation that was already present for other reasons.