I think the amount of shit stirring on it has led to the recent behaviours here.
We're definitely at a high-water mark in society right now for shit stirring and nonsense.
I'm certainly very sympathetic to Admin in his frustrations. He and the original podcast crew when they were still active on the site always were perfectly clear that if the day ever came when they had to actively moderate the forum, that would be the same day they pulled the plug on the site and shut it down.
On the whole, I still love the site and think it's great. However I do think the No Politics rule is probably untenable in the long-term. People have more going on in their lives than
just Spurs - hopefully they do, sometimes I have my doubts - and want to share and talk about their lives, thoughts, hobbies, and amusements with like-minded friends. What's going on in the world is a big part of that, and there's almost no way to divorce any sense of politics from that equation.
Personally, I don't think politics is actually the problem, as much as it is a symptom of the problem that for as long as this site has existed, there has always been a small subset of the forum that has seemed intent on ruining a good thing for pretty much everyone else, and which have consistently and endlessly demonstrated a complete lack of respect for this community. Politics is a lightning-rod for controversy, and a handful of people that simply cannot regulate their emotions or demonstrate any consistent measure of respect for others have once again gotten a great and valued feature of the website taken away for the rest of us. Heck, not many people active now will even know or remember that we used to have a "dislike" button, before one person in particular made it such a fucking broken and terrible feature of the website that the privilege was removed for everyone.
I don't think it will stop here and now. The Spurs threads aren't toxic right now
because it's the fucking offseason, not because people are somehow better behaved in there. Fuck me, I started posting less and less in the Spurs threads over the past couple of years
specifically because the threads about Spurs were so toxic and miserable. Now it's the middle of summer, and the Off-Topic threads become a hell-hole because there's not much to talk about regarding Spurs... big surprise there. Politics is of the moment right now due to major world events and an enormously important election coming up, but what's going to happen six months from now when the election is in the rear-view mirror and possibly two major global conflicts are deescalating? Those people are going to funnel back into the Spurs threads and be up to the same old shit that they always have.
If we're not going to address the root-cause, which is people's unacceptable and disrespectful behavior, then my fear is that this is the beginning of the end of the site, and that Admin's growing frustrations will result in the website going dark permanently.