re: #175 goddamnedfrank

I think the reason that a lot of the people who are here now came here is because it was fucking amazing to actually see an online community in flux. I’ve never seen anything remotely like it. It took a very unique combination of blog owner and the right kind and number of reasonable commenters to execute the kind of change that took place here. It’s easy to imagine this place dying completely as a result of the lines in the sand Charles drew.

The fights against Creationism, Christian Supremacy and the European neo-fascist right alienated a huge chunk of a community that had come to view the place as theirs. It’s no coincidence that Blogmocracy originally had named itself LGF 2.0, they felt that their home had been stolen by one random dude, ignoring the fact that it never belonged to them. It’s easy to imagine that without a solid number of moderates and liberals already in place and contributing to those debates that this place could easily have ended up another deserted blog on internet. Instead, while the old numbers haven’t come back the discussion here is actually thriving, and the community is more diverse and interesting than ever.

There are also those of us who were in the midst of a mindset change at the same time Charles was. You’d be hard-pressed to call me a moderate or a liberal when I joined, but I was headed in that direction. What separated me from the haters is that I was willing to change as I learned more true facts, as opposed to those who were stuck in their ideological rut and resented that people might actually change their minds, even about core convictions.