No. The old AB was the best.

I loved Answerbag before it changed, and it was much better than here, then. I think this site is a little stricter. Bit I love this site now. I wouldn’t go back to AB because they changed it far too much and completely ruined it.

Here is a comparative answer: Fluther is like driving a BMW, where Answerbag is like driving a Volkswagen.

No Comparison.

The moderators here are like the hall monitors in school. they will sometimes let you slide on a question or two, but believe me, the moderators are in full controll on Fluther and this is a good thing.

Welcome to Fluther. john

No comparison. I wish that I had discovered Fluther three years ago and not have wasted my time in that wasteland. The AB of six or seven years ago was very similar to Fluther today, but commercialism and uncaring ownership destroyed it. Even before the last format change, that site had regressed into cliques and point-gathering.

I think Fluther is better.

I think Fluther is better also.

What’s Answerbag?

@tinyfaery
A question and answer site like this one. But they made some awful changes and it turned into something similar to Yahoo. People were mean to each on it, like properly mean. But you could ask as many questions as you liked.

@john65pennington the old beetles were great cars (50s and 60s). Just as the AB of 10 years ago was a great site. Things move on, usually not for the better. Hopefully Fluther won’t go that way, too.

@

@thriftymaid
I agree lurve for you.

I left Answerbag the day it changed. It was hard at the time.
Looking back on AB now is like reminiscing about an old girlfriend.

It was nice while it lasted, but I’m over it now.

Time to move on.

Let that be a lesson to Fluther to not change up a successful model.

I’m sure AnswerBag was very optimistic about their changes initially.
Many other websites have gone the same route.

If it’s not broke, remember what you’re not supposed to do?

The old AB structure and layout was much easier to navigate and required much less re-reading through the posts to follow the threads germane to your own comments. Plus it had a way more diverse breakdown of topics which allowed a member to gravitate towards areas of interest. You were also able to see at a glance where and what your friends were up to. It also had an 18 and over section for the NSFW type questions that kept racier stuff off the main stage. The best part was the Outside the Bag “tab” where all the whacky whimsical questions would be that were really the most fun part of the whole forum.

I liked Answerbag because it had tons of people and there was always someone interesting to meet and converse with.
However, the points system was bullshit, everyone bitched about it all the time, the site never worked properly and it was run like crap with see no evil hear no evil moderation. Plus cliques ahoy thinking they were important haha.
I never liked the layout of AB, and it’s even worse now, plus it’s totally dead. The only active person litters the user section with questions like, ’‘aren’t you glad all the biznatches are gone’’ lol.

As for Fluther, it works way better. I don’t like the alert system much, but I can live with it. At least it does what it’s supposed to do.

Plenty of great people here too, but way less active than ye olde AssBage, but I am kinda wary of how the community around here works. Some people are vicious and noticably so, unlike AB where the majority were just tards haha. But I’m prolly just an asshole, don’t mind me. If I really didn’t like it here, I’d be gone.

It’s hard to compare both though, because both are very different and the people are very different…the only thing that allows me to disctintly make any kinda contrast is how retarded AB is/was/lulz?

@Symbeline I was probobly one of the people that they were happy to see go lol. Some people there really hated me. Some people here are vicious but that’s to be expected. There were alot of people who thought they were “special”. They were special…in a way.

Not sure if I was there in it’s prime I was there maybe 3 months,been here 4 months.All I know is i’m hear & probably will be for the forseeable future.

@Mikelbf2000 I’m sure I was one of em too. Don’t matter much at this point though.

With all these “new improved Fluther” noises going on, I expect to see another ruined site. Who knows? Maybe I’ll be pleasantly surprised, but I doubt it. I’ll continue to use the site the way I’m used to, until they kick me off. I’m getting tired of sites that make major format changes without giving detailed instructions to the users. I hope at least they won’t pull the sleazy stunt that AB did, trapping our names and avatars to make it appear that there were more active users than actually existed. If the “cancel your account” option disappears, that will be a sure sign that they’re heading down that path.

Old AB: ^_^ (Oh! How incredible!)

New AB: +_+ (I’m dying….)

Fluther: ^_^ (Amazing!)

AB was great seven years ago, but each “improvement” made it steadily worse. Now it’s not even worth mentioning. I hope I’m wrong, but I fear that Fluther may be headed down the same path.

@Cruiser
Yes you are correct.
I enjoyed my friends list on AB. It was easy to group with people that shared my interest; and we had no moderators hassling us. Over things I find really stupid.
I come here to speak with many intelligent people. I also belong to several other cites.
I post many interesting questions on cites that do not censor me.

The old AB was better than Fluther for a lot of subtle reasons, partly due to the lack of censorship heavy-handed moderation (personal attacks DID get removed on AB, but somebody had to take the time to notify a mod since mods are less proactive than here, and the mods also took a more liberal stand on “free speech” on AB). The process of asking a question, posting a formal answer (if your answer didn’t answer the question, it would eventually be removed), and then discussing each answer in chronological comments (just like Fluther but without the censorship moderation) under that answer tended to engender more personal conversations and build friendships.

But Fluther is better than the new AB because AB took away much of the functionality of alerting you to new answers to your questions and new comments to your answers and/or comment threads you’re following. Imagine if Fluther removed the Questions for You (5 new) and the Comments for You (3 new) and the Activity for You (4 new) at the top of this page, and you had to search through your profile to track down new activity for you. That’s what they did to AB to make the page layout look more “corporate,” and make room on the page for more ads and silly features like polls and debates and whatnot, and is why participation is way down.

I like Fluther better.

I like Fluthers greater structure than other sites. But enough is enough. The existing rules are sufficient if only enforced. While I don’t use humor very often, I find it entertaining as long as not directed at other users. Separating it out may create an apartheid-like situation of a “stand-up comedy” section that I’m not interested in and a “deadly-serious” section where even the slightest pun gets modded out. This is typical over-reaction; A word of warning about joking responses or making fun of the questioner would have sufficed. Now we’re facing structural changes that threaten the entire spirit of the site. Bless us every one…

The old AB was the shit, no doubt. There was a small group of folks that had a snooty “you’re not good enough to be one of us” attitude, but there were so many members that it didn’t matter. You could easily overlook them.

There was precious little favoritism, which I loved. I always made it a point to welcome new users (if I saw them come in), and so did others. Trolls, whether established ABer or new user, were dealt with effectively and resolutely. In the same vein, personal attacks were not allowed, period. Mods were excellent about removing hurtful/flaming/offensive posts, but took a hands-off approach in general, allowing the opportunity for people to work out thier own problems, which they did. Being in an environment where mods have faith in you, people thrived.

Comparing them to fluther mods, I really appreciate that. You could trust the mods to be fair and apply the rules evenly. That is non-existent here. As for religious and political attacks, that happens on ANY website, so I can’t fault the old AB for that. Nasty posts were removed from those categories, too.

I really miss those “Am I pergint pregant pragant with child” questions, though. ~

It’s definitely better than wis.dm in its hey days.

Like a few others said….the old AB was better than Fluther (sorry jellies). But Fluther is alot better than the new AB.