Originally Posted by jayeff

I wonder. Most of Connor's points seem self-evident. Many of us would agree with them and indeed they are the guidelines by which the majority of boards are run. But one effect of having such a sensible approach to board behavior is that general boards (sponsor and support boards are different animals) end up without much to distinguish one from another.

YNot was the first board I ever visited regularly and back in the day it was most of what a good industry board should be. But too quickly, adult webmasters became increasingly reluctant to share useful information or talk openly about industry issues of any importance. Since then, most general board content has been essentially "fluff", neither very useful nor especially entertaining. Things got worse as more boards opened up and our community diluted itself across them.

You really have to assume that the operators of GFY deliberately capitalize on "obnoxious board behavior", because it doesn't just break out here from time to time: basically it's the norm. And it was a smart move, because it isn't surprizing there is room for at least one board to be intentionally perverse.

So GFY gets lots of visitors and that in turn guarantees that most sponsors will post their news here (and sometimes only here). It is downright embarrassing that GFY is a major industry forum; I rarely find GFY entertaining; I hate in effect supporting something which caters for the lowest common denominator; and it is a pain in the butt to have to sift through all the dross to get at the useful stuff. But the reality is that if I didn't visit here, I wouldn't even know everything that sponsors I am signed up with were doing.