I think what you have here is a cross-section of people who are for the most part getting elderly. Various things tend to happen with such groups of people. They yearn for things to be more like they were in their youth, but the world keeps changing around them, and there's nothing one can do about that. One gets physically less flexible and various things get harder to do. One is afflicted with aches, pains, illnesses, etc. A lot of people react to that by getting cranky, argumentative, and cynical. That makes them harder to get along with.

Another thing I noticed was how badly the mood soured around here after 911 happened. It was a profound shock to the whole world when that occurred, and the world has not gotten over it yet.

Furthermore, we've seen a series of economic shocks that have threatened people's security.

And I think that accounts for a great deal of what has changed on this forum in the past 10 years or so. I don't think it's that the BS section or the BS threads themselves have damaged the forum, I think it's an overall shift in people's general moods that has done so.