My understanding is that there were some bad/vicious events a year or so ago? Since January, when I started posting, things have been pretty tame...not "disintegrating to hell".

To the extent this site was ever "slipping to hell" its not my impression, listening to "old timers", that the problem was due to off topic posts, per se.

My understanding is that problems arose due to some offensive langauage/posts, which is something that I think moderators can/should moderate.

The only thing I experienced that was pretty "wierd" was some lady who made a number of bizzare, irrelevant, off-all-topic posts about Citibank's envelopes and other seemingly silly stuff. She seems to have disappeared before this change, however.

Most of the other problems that I have heard about stemmed from abusive remarks, which I do not support.

Going back say to the month of June, for example, before this change was implemented, what was so bad about what was happpening?