How has the general tone of fluther changed or evolved?

How has it changed for you in the last month you’ve been here?

@zenele I’m beginning to feel more comfortable with y’all. I had to have one of my first answers removed because I let my hair down a little too far. This is my first experience doing this. Is this technically called a blog or chat room or what?

Actually, we’re technically in your question – now it’s a thread.

At the start it was very smart, very well spoken users who wanted to help each other.
Then it turned into social mayhem.
Now, the new updates have made the place seem much more like the early days. It’s now possible again to get help without every thread turning into a frizzer thread.
I wish some users realized it wasn’t necessary to answer every question. Sometimes it’s best to just remain silent. But I understand some users are shut ins who have no social outlet besides the Internet. So I tolerate.

@breedmitch How does it feel to be a part of this place for almost 3 years?

Over the year plus that I’ve been here, I’ve found the ebb and flow to pretty much coincide with the school holidays. It gets banal, then not so much, and so on.

To me, the latest incarnation feels the most stable and the most compliant to the flow of user needs and interests.

Fluther has also gotten beyond a few taboo subjects and vehement clashes between atheists and proselytizers. Social and political conservatives have never lasted very long. Nobody is asking iPhone questions anymore. The user base has grown tremendously and diversified to a smaller degree, but diversified nonetheless. And, of course, the lurve economy has grown beyond anyone’s wildest dreams.

I’ve been here less that six months. But I’ve had to make some changes in the way I interact on Fluther.

The only thing that’s greatly affected me is that I’ll see a question, formulate an answer, click on the question, discover that it’s in the General category, then click off without posting my response. I often formulate answers that run slightly off-topic, now verboten on General. If I do answer a General question, I usually won’t follow the thread, so as to avoid being drawn into an off-topic discussion.

I’m also learning to surpress my expression of humor; beneficial to the site since most people don’t understand it anyway.

Now I only have to learn to stop complimenting people, as these remarks are frequently being misinterpreted as flirting.

I’ve noticed a lessening in on-thread people bashing, less private conversations in threads and more what I would classify as extreme ends of the social spectrum (political and whatnot). I think it’s good to have varying opinions yet I hope all jellies can respect the views of others. We shall see.

I was drifting away but the changes have given me a place to be serious and a place to get goofy. I’m grateful for the new blood and miss some of the old (to me anyway).

I’ve been here a good amount of time and I’ve been through changes and several evolutions. When I first arrived, it felt like the community was small, everyone pretty much knew each other, and that made me stick around, as well as the fact that I felt personally welcomed by all (I even got a very nice PM from Andrew right after I started) and that generally, the intellectual bar was set nice and high. Very different from what I had experienced of other Q&A sites, especially Yahoo Answers.

Over time, the community has grown, it has become less personal, less warm, and perhaps less welcoming. We’ve had several outrageous influxes of people that were quite chaotic until they got sorted out and assimilated. These days, I feel like folks are a bit more guarded, less tolerant of newbies, and the community has become somewhat fragmented into groups who identify/agree with one another, who are each other’s favorites, that sort of thing. I wouldn’t say so much that it’s clique-ish, it actually feels less so than it did to me maybe 6–12 months ago. There does seem to be a popular crowd, though.

I like the newest round of changes and just today began to appreciate them all the more when I answered a question in the Social section and realized I no longer had to hold back on my sense of humor for fear of pissing people off by not answering seriously. I’m still getting to know the newest round of new users and I have a core group of people I really respect and admire.

It is the same old story.

Lust and infatuation does not last for ever.

Yep, it has improved.

I think the moderation is way more consistent that what it was like the first time I was around, and it feels a lot less cliquey. I also like the division of questions.

I don’t think the quality of the questions has suffered, but hey, nostalgia isn’t what it used to be.

I keep forgetting that I have to click the Social button to see any questions that I might be interested in.

I like it better now; I like that the “social” section allows for more freedom than this site has ever allowed for, but still doesn’t allow flamewars and stupid crap like that.