Morning Elvis - this kind of question makes me laugh to be honest. I do understand why people think AB has been "ruined" in the past year or so, but from my point of view, it hasn't really. I'm only ever on AB during the day, very seldom after 6pm at night, and only occasionally at weekends. To all intents and purposes, the threads I get involved in are the same as they've ever been. Reason? I'm not on at night when the chat starts in earnest, and the few r soles who populate the site come out to play. The petty, childish fights and arguments largely rage on after I've logged off. When I log in the following morning I seldom, if ever post on these pointless threads, and just chose to ignore them (if they haven't been removed for being offensive or stupid beyond belief lol).
Where did it all go wrong? Probably the ill conceived introduction of CB. There were way too many users unable to control themselves enough to use CB properly and it had to be removed. Since then, the harking back to days of yore has never ceased, and any kind of chat has caused ill feeling among some. I watched CB, but never once posted in it....as an outsider it seemed poisonous and cliquey in the extreme, and I just wasn't interested. It should never have been introduced to a Q and A site like this (easy to say with hindsight).
So elvis, I don't find AB that much different to when I joined a couple of years back. I can still find helpful answers to any questions I have, and actually, I enjoy the Sports/Footie section more than ever. There were always idiots and r soles in certain sections, and I always pretty much ignored them. I still ignore posts I don't like, the only difference now is that (with the exception of this thread) I now also have to ignore threads about how good AB used to be, how bad it is now, how the muppets are taking over etc. if they are...it's because AB users let them.
take care Elvis, have a good day. x