The exodus of the blue avatars

[Associate Justice PiT]

     Having been on the forum for a long time, I have noticed that there has been a steep decline in posting quality. I don't know when the tipping point happened exactly, but the first time I noticed this being a problem was in 2014, when any poll that showed Republicans doing well was just dismissed by spamming "junk poll" at it. As it happened, those "junk polls" turned out to be quite accurate, but moreover it was a sign of a serious problem for the forum at large.

     It makes it hard for me to care about what gets posted on Atlas or to engage seriously with it, knowing that the effort will go to waste. I've found that when I try to put in an effort, my post will usually get ignored to mock something more ostentatious, and if responded to it will almost certainly be twisted and misread. And that is supposing the topic is worth the effort in the first place, because USGD these days is dominated by culture war threads (usually started by red avatars, mind you), and anything that lacks a clear culture war or Trump angle is unlikely to make it past a few pages. Knowing that there is little value in making serious contributions to Atlas today whereas there had been a much greater value proposition a decade ago, I post far less frequently and rarely make an effort when I do post. Admittedly, I don't know how representative my situation is of conservatives on Atlas in general.

[Associate Justice PiT]

Something that I think is missed in this discussion. Low-quality white noise blue avs get bullied off the forum pretty quickly, and rightfully so. Low quality white noise red avs don't, unfortunately, and they stick around.

this might be the single biggest reason there are so few blue avs.  The sh**tty ones can't hack it or freak out and get banned.  sh**tty red avs can and do stick around for years.  Some of them are Atlas "institutions".

     And the low quality of the median red avatar contributes greatly to creating the climate I spoke of where the forum simply isn't worth making serious contributions to anymore. Sometimes I see a thread I want to post in, but scrolling through and seeing a wall of Reddit-tier takes from Democrats disabuses me of any interest in participating.