Why it matters (to the utility of UG)
I have been a member of quite a number of groups, both online and irl, in which people discussed and debated their strongly held beliefs on controversial and important (at least to the people involved) topics. Some of these groups focused on one or a few topics, sometimes rather technical ones; in other cases the discussions were as wide ranging and open ended as one could imagine...no less than the range of topics we discuss on UG.
Broadly speaking, these groups fall into one of two quite different categories. Groups of one category, let's call them type A just for the fun of sounding like a social scientist, tend to build feelings of group camraderie, positive morale and enthusiasm. They often lead to real personal affection and even lifelong friendships. The participants tend to recall them fondly long after the groups dissolve. Etc. Groups of the other category, you guessed it...type B, are pretty much the opposite (of course...dialectic analysis is irresistable). They tend to make people unhappy, angry, resentful, alienated from the group and so forth. They give birth to lifelong animosities all too often. And so forth; you get the picture I'm sure. Of course, some groups, especially big ones, can be a bit of both A and B type...for different subgroups and/or at different points in their histories. Lots of complexities swept away in generalizations here, but I think the basic dichotomy is a valid one.
Oh, and no minor point is that type A groups are much more likely to achieve their goals in cases in which the group has some well defined goal or purpose.
And so what is the difference? What makes a particular group type A or B? It is subtle and difficult to pin down in any precise way, but it has something to do with whether or not the members of the group generally feel supported or feel threatened, feel appreciated or ciriticized, feel more likely to be rewarded for "success" or poitive contributions or to be punished for "failure" or negative contributions, feel liked or disliked...and so forth. Again, I am sure that the overall point I am making is clear, and indeed familiar to most of us from our own experiences. The differences are set by individual personalities, especially those of the leaders or most active members, by the style of the discourse, by the way matters of status and hierarchy are handled, by ...
But while it is simple to describe, it is not easy to manage. Neither a group nor its leaders/organizers can simply decide to have type A or type B. It mostly emerges out of some sort of complexities of the group dynamics. Maybe it is like chaos; a relatively small matter can have large consequences for the group's type (mood, style, etc). I donno.
Anyway, fwiiw, I have the impression that UG (or, more precisely, the subset of UG that participates in the threads I mostly read and post to) has been drifting sharply from A towards B in recent weeks and months. I doubt that we could any longer have some of the best (most valuable to me, at least) discussions that were going on only a few months back. And, I think that this particular thread makes this drift particularly vivid. It is really too bad.
-Ww