I've been on NS since 2005 so to some people on here that makes me a newb but to many more I've been around forever. I've got a few observations on the site over the past almost decade.
-First, let me say that of my total time spent on NS, probably 80% of it was spent in the first three years (when i was in high school). Since then, I still come on, check, and occasionally post but i used to post maybe five times a day and now I probably post three times a month. I think the biggest reason for my tapering off over the last 9 years is you just kind of outgrow the site. The culture of the site, even when i first joined, was serious and entertaining discussion mixed with hilarious trolling and some bullshitting. I think the biggest difference between then and now is if you open up a thread from say 2006, 8/10 posts are serious and the other two are off topic outrageous attempts at a laugh. Now you have the absolute inverse of that. Someone posts a legit topic for discussion and he gets one genuine response followed by eight kids in jr high making dick jokes.
I think there are a lot more people on here that provide serious content than there are immature trolls but the issue is volume. if 3/4 people post legit content and 1/4 posts off topic bullshit but the trolls make 10 times as many posts, whenever you open up a thread, the majority of it is gonna be "Spiderman! Dildos! OP's MOM!" etc. Just look at this thread is an example. there are probably equal numbers of people on both sides of the rule change issue but there are way more posts from the five dudes who are vehemently opposed to it. A good analogy would be the tea party. a small number of very loud and outrageous right wing nut jobs has made the whole republican party look like theyve lost their minds.
I am really not super invested in this site anymore so this suggestion will likely be met with vitriol from the peanut gallery but its just an idea to try and quell some of the useless post whoring. On the Gawker Media sites (gawker, deadspin, jolapnik, etc) they comments are gray colored until they are recognized as like approved or certified posters. people can still read the comments but its kind of like are signatures here, everyones eyes are just drawn to the darker content. so on those sites you can read the gray comments if you want but most people focus on the approved commenters input because its darker. I think this would be a tool NS could use, ie, something similar. Either a mod could turn off topic trolling comments gray or it could be used as a softer version of a ban: if someone is posting tollworthy content that isnt bad enough for a ban, they get turned gray. if trolls persist with their trolling, it could lead to a subculture of grayness in threads but at least it would separate the immature children from people who are interested in having a somewhat on topic discussion.
This is just my two cents. when i log back in to the site in probably over a week i anticipate my karma will be lower but whatever.
