I really really appreciate the thoughtful comments - thats probably half the reason why I come to this site - to see the perspectives of a cool group of people, and importantly, the same group of people. I love kleinbl00's norman rockwell rants and _refugee_'s art galleries. But I agree though, it does make a high bar for a comment. I myself basically only comment on pubskis, light "facebook-level shitposting" like the movie post, and meta things (like this!), and maybe that's a good thing, but it definitely is a thing
The thoughtful discussion is 100% the reason I come to Hubski. I come here because Hubski never fails to deliver stimulating posts and conversation, and that makes this place an oasis from all the other noise on the internet. I mention the intimidation factor in part because the experimental delay alleviated a lot of my apprehension about commenting, and also because I've noticed a lot of long-time users expressing that they feel the quality of discussion has changed somehow. As a newer user, I don't have a frame of reference to make a comparison between present day Hubski and how things may have been in the past. mk has pointed out that there was a dip in the general respectfulness of interaction, but the comments on the posts discussing the changes to the site suggest several Hubski veterans see lack of user engagement/activity as the problem. As an outsider, I suspect these two phenomena are related, but I'm curious about what users with longer tenure think - and I'm especially curious about the perspective of other longstanding users who tend not to participate.