Gosh, I've gotta join this love-fest. But here's my thought: I don't see a lot of dissenting opinions on this forum these days, and I have seen those who've disagreed with moderator's opinions swiftly banned, or had posts deleted and were otherwise chastised.
There were, in the old days, some folks with rather extreme opinions who occasionally crossed the line from snarkiness to outright rudeness or incivility. It became interesting to see how members aligned themselves with other member and banded together to shut down the offenders without needing moderators to get involved. Frankly, the forum was a lot more lively and entertaining then ...
I must say, I rather enjoyed the good ol' days of the "L & P" subforum.
It's all well and good that we're so civilized here, but I've got to say, compared to many other forums, there's a lot more "preaching to the choir" here.
However, I don't come here because everyone is so civil, but rather because there is such a broad cross-section of experience and knowledge represented compared to other options. Other forums perhaps with more specialized focus attract more of the same dynamic and less diversity in membership, so they do then tend to get more heated -- and younger folk (who grew up on the internet, never had to give opinions in person and suffer fists thrown as a result) seem to be a big part of that, or the forum plank-owners who've been around forever and think that their membership join date alone renders all their opinions solid gold.
THR on the other hand, seems to own an incredibly diverse membership, a big age-range from young'uns up through seniors, with a lot of occupations and regions represented. Which makes many contributions more valuable to me -- because we do seem to have more experience talking rather than simply opinions -- at least in the rifle, hunting and revolver forums -- when it comes to actual guns than other forums.
