inside you will find the most in depth dissertation of clutchfansology ever conducted

to begin, i think the age range on this board spans from 16-50 with a few statistical deviations of course (i'm not singling you out deckard .)

the GARM is dominated by the 16-21 age range along with the foreign fans category of whom i can't tell the age range.

the hangout and astros/texans forum are dominated by the 25ish-30 group.

the D&D is the 25+ group, probably more heavily weighed by the 30+ group.

these groups don't really intermingle. the hangout and D&D are fairly secure from the GARM group. conversely, the hangout/D&D groups don't venture into the GARM except for occasional sarcastic one liners. they definitely don't make the mistake of getting bogged down into long basketball-related debates. (ie: you're not going to see hangout regulars like moestavern or D&D regulars like samfisher get tied down in an argument in the GARM.)

the next issue: where did the old-timers go? azim da dream, DREAMer, outlaw, TheFreak, Almu, dreamshake, Mango - these and others are simply gone. The popular explanation might be that they have all changed their names to some variation of GroGruxor, but I think the issue should be explored more critically.

my personal theory is simply that these guys (and the other old timers) were in their 20's in '99 and have simply outgrown the GARM. this ties back to my main premise of the GARM being carried by the 16-21 age range. everyone kept getting older while the steady stream of new GARM posters stayed the same age (with a new batch replacing each group with each subsequent era).

everyone asks where the old timers are but i think my age theory explains it. most of those guys just outgrew the GARM, while the others just seek refuge in the hangout/D&D.

two main factors are at play:
A) the natural maturation process of not really caring to debate in depth about sports as one ages.
B) the fact that the GARM has literally exploded in size, most of these older posters don't have the patience to keep up with a debate. there's just so many voices that it's simply too difficult to dig through everything and differentiate between everyone.

i think B strongly outweighs A because you see some very engaging debate in the astros/texans forum, and i would attribute this to the small size of that community. you know what side The Cat is on, what side bobrek is on, etc etc.

in conclusion i think these theories should really put to rest many of the unanswered questions left circulating these days.

and nothing above is pertinent to briankagy. nothing can explain what happened there.

 

The NBA Dish and Astros forums are the best forums on this board, BY FAR. if you look at some of the threads, some of the discussion is incredible. i attribute this to the fact that, as you said, the size is just perfect. not too many, but enough for a good discussion, and easily recognizable faces with well documented histories/stances in the past.

major props to A_3P0/durvasa among others for carrying the NBA dish while a host of characters including The Cat/Major/bobrek/Googrux/Max have made the Astros discussion top notch.

 

This might be the funniest quote I've ever read on this board.