Brasas: As a counterpoint and agreement to Telika I'm going to post.

As many others have said there is somewhat of a golden past nostalgia assumed here that is false. That said, the conflicts shifted from the DRM area to more cultural areas in GOG. In the overall gaming world they didn't shift they just ignitied obviously. This shift without changing anything about the quality of the people involved, is much harder to avoid being biased about, and therefore seeing things as worst.

Where I disagree with Telika is on blaming the Gamergate contingent. I guess in this case I should say I kind of include myself in it, despite the truth being I don't really - my ideological roots are much broader than the GG context - it is too reductive for me and I don't fit into it that smoothly anyway. So take that as an admission against interest and give it whatever weight. I can post links to several topics years before GG about what would be now called SJW activism jumping the shark. Of course Telika would agree and just say GG was the final surfacing of that negative element that was always shitty and should have submitted to the changes coming into gaming.

Anyway, what really changed was the 2008 crisis. I saw a similar shift online around 9/11 and the Iraq invasion. Basically the larger insecurity people feel the more attached they will be to what they have. Unwarranted defensiveness and oversensitivity is IMO more of a problem in our current cultural context than perceived or real attacks. It wasn't a sudden change obviously, it was a gradual shift as more people lost jobs or had their individual circunstances deteriorate.

And yes, there is also a lot of truth to the volume explanation. As GOG grew its audience shifted and there are different netiquette standards and subcultures interacting.

Shadowstalker16: @tineyE:
Mine is working fine thank you very much! Maybe yours is broken :D

hedwards: It used to be that there were rules here. People might actually get banned if they insulted each other. or broke the rules.

tinyE: Yeah it must me. I need a vacation. :P

hedwards: Does anybody know when exactly this forum turned to shit?

It's a serious question. People around here used to have class, but it seems like lately that not a single day goes by where I don't see a significant number of people engaging in some rather rude behavior.

It used to be that there were rules here. People might actually get banned if they insulted each other. or broke the rules. These days, not only is that a common occurrence.

Maybe it's the new games, maybe it's the growth or maybe it was just a matter of time, but the typical intellect around here is rapidly approaching that of the Steam forums.

It's rather depressing really,this used to be a cool place to hang out, but now we've got entire threads dedicated to trolling new users. Posts that really shouldn't be in GD, but GOG hasn't felt like providing anywhere else for them, so things like the forum games, which are reasonable to have, end up taking up valuable space on the front page when really they ought to have their own entire sub-forum where people can find them, but where they aren't in the way of discussion.

micktiegs_8: Kind of annoying to see someone with a retarded one-liner get highly rated.

timppu: Maybe I don't notice it that much as I don't participate in the giveaways etc. It may also be that I care more about the games in GOG than the forums, even if I am quite active in the forums too.

R8V9F5A2: The more people there are on the forum the more likely there'll be clashes.
You don't even need to have made a salty or negative remark in order to be met with rudeness, simply responding to an OP's statement is enough to invite mockery, even from the OPs him/herself. They should be glad someone took the time to read their post, let alone leave a comment.

The migration of certain Steam gamers into GOG is another explanation, as the forum posts here have started to look more and more like those on Steam.

Elmofongo: The Escapist forums has proper moderation

That forum has a gaming and off-topic discussion.

And the Escapist Forums does not have a rep system.

micktiegs_8: [...] Oh and one for the 'what did just update' thread.

hedwards: [...] the higher minded threads [...]

jamotide: Classy community=People who don't downvote hedwards offensive posts

http://www.gog.com/forum/general_archive/end_of_the_year_extra_games_free/post32

HereForTheBeer: I think these posts are often done to try to break the momentum of a thread that is going in a bad direction. Sort of the forum version of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OnpkDWbeJs

HypersomniacLive: Not sure I follow - why should this thread have to move to a subforum?