Huh? I've been hanging around Metafilter for many years. There have been changes since it ran on a box under Matt's desk, but "used to be amazing" to "going downhill"? Not seeing it. It's still one of the most civil places around.
The parent is dead right. MeFi was interesting was then was civil disagreement.
Everyone piling on and 'favouriting' how bad Conservatives | Trump | Business | Capitalism | Libertarians | Rupert Murdoch are is very dull.
It's still good for some funny cat pictures and stuff though.
Oh, and just for HN readers, MeFi these days seems to think Silicon Valley is full of Libertarian Brogrammers. There are comments saying how terrible HN is. Perhaps because there is more diversity of opinion here.
Diversity of opinion is important. Having people present their arguments well is important. But that goes down when it's just a festival of agreement.
Oddly, it's better at HN. Perhaps because there is less politics and more stuff where people actually have useful expertise.
It's not as if there isn't anything good to be gleaned from the site, so I'm not likely to flame out (though I do find every moderated comment provides a nice motivation to take a self-imposed break from the site and find other places to speak my mind). And it's not as if the past was a golden age of nothing but enlightened philosophers arguing betwixt hilarious quonsar shenanigans. Nor is it the case that I always feel like I'm fighting a battle and most of my comments disappear. There's plenty of my comments that are also decorated with many favorites, so I guess you win some you lose some.
But sometime in the last 3-4 years (out of the 15-ish that I've been frequenting it), the comment deletion started happening more often with rationales that looked thin to skewed to me. Along with that I think I've sensed a change in the gestalt of the site. And when stuff like the Google Memo and subsequent firing comes up, I know that even if I think the Metafilter gestalt is wrong about a handful of things among other opinions that I agree with, and I think can articulate a good thoughtful case that might be worth considering.... I know it's not a good idea to put in the time there. And my guess from the Metatalk discussions I've monitored and other interactions on with the site, Josh and the current mods largely consider that a win, believing that Metafilter is a better place without pushback on some opinions/politics/ideals, even if it's expressed politely and thoughtfully.
That's within the rights of any online publication or community, of course. Not every space has to be purely open-speech or even polite speech with a committed culture of critical review, editorial slant is and probably will inescapably be a thing no matter who you are. But I also think it's reasonable to say that it's changed notably in that regard.
That thread [1] was particularly hostile, so much so that I'm shocked to see so many people here defending Metafilter's culture. Even though I largely agree with their politics, I don't visit Metafilter very much because the echo chamber is simply too bad. One user in that thread was particularly bullying - they had 98 comments in the thread (nearly 1 in 10), and over 2300 favorites from other users. Politically I'm well to the left of the median commenter on Hacker News, but I've found Metafilter to be unbearably toxic whenever sensitive issues come up.
[1] http://www.metafilter.com/168651/Misogyny-based-on-flawed-er...
It's still mostly witty, funny, gen-x zeitgeist. There's great wordplay.
The last couple of years, however, it has had an undercurrent of seething anger. There's such deep faith in really liberal social, economic, and political policies, and an increasingly narrow orthodoxy. I don't think Bill Clinton-era democrats would make it very on long on the blue these days. Hit the wrong note, and it quickly turns to Elyse toting up her unpaid emotional labor, and Steven going from NPR to Chapo Trap House, and Mallory joining the Middlebury Antifa to beat up Charles Murray.
Similar bad things have happened on the right, of course. Kids become Milo, not Alex. But it makes me sad to see the two sides drifting. It's hard to shake the bad feeling about the future.