excast

What happened is that a lot of the great interaction disappeared because Patrick went to Chicago, Dave quit, Ryan passed away, and Vinny went to New York. You are talking about roughly 2/3 of the regular folks on the site disappearing from the main office in a little over a year. Things have changed and they still don't have nearly that same level of interaction as they did when they first came over from Whiskey.

It's not really bad now or anything. It's just different and is going to take some getting used to.

One of the welcome changes over the past few weeks has been the addition of content appearing on the weekend and even on Mondays. It used to get a little barren around here sometimes when there was often nothing from Friday afternoon until Tuesday morning. I hope this is a trend that continues. You guys have been killing it lately.

I guess one concern I do have is that in the push to be a place where everyone feels welcome, we ignore the reality that some of the people who have complaints about not feeling welcome are doing a lot to add to the toxicity. I don't want to really harp on some of the folks who have already been at the center of some controversies regarding the site lately, but I think most of us could agree that trying to label the entire site as catering to misogynists simply because of who was hired is a sensationalist argument not really intended to further discussion.

Rather sensitive information below. My apologies if it is too heavy, but I feel it needs to be said.

I wish the staff luck. You guys have been working your tails off under some exceedingly difficult circumstances and I am happy to see you growing and improving.

I dunno, is a drunk yelling racist things on a street corner a part of the community? Technically I guess so. And they are certainly loud and know how to make a scene. But do they actually represent much other than themselves and their own insecurities?

@vinny: I don't think I have seen it stated any better. Good job Vinagawa McCaravellaburgito!

I think the issue is pretending that a few loud, obnoxious voices represent a community of thousands of people. But that is the problem in many discussions. The loud fringes drown out the sensible, moderate middle.

I don't think they do. I think they are being overly cautious, which I understand.

I understand their concern after the nasty drama surrounding the hires, but yeah. It does seem like anything that isn't flowers and rainbows is now being closed or deleted.

The vast majority of us reasonable folks can't do much about a few people being horrible for the hell of it.

It's a bit of a bummer that the majority of people who can discuss a topic in a completely reasonable manner are not being allowed to because of a few over the top outliers. Hopefully this isn't the direction the site is going to be taking going forward. Stifling community interaction is not healthy.