Creative Speculation

permitted in the old forum on DU2 simply was no longer allowed, per the revised TOS, once DU3 rolled out. In fact, the welcome change for very limited tolerance for the standard nutty CT'er bullshit we had to put up with on DU2 is referenced twice in the DU3 TOS:

Don't be a wingnut (right-wing or extreme-fringe).
Democratic Underground is an online community for politically liberal people who understand the importance of working within the system to elect more Democrats and fewer Republicans to all levels of political office. Teabaggers, Neo-cons, Dittoheads, Paulites, Freepers, Birthers, and right-wingers in general are not welcome here. Neither are certain extreme-fringe left-wingers, including advocates of violent political/social change, hard-line communists, terrorist-apologists, America-haters, kooks, crackpots, LaRouchies, and the like. - emphasis added.

Don't go overboard with the crazy talk.
Democratic Underground is not intended to be a platform for kooks and crackpots peddling paranoid fantasies with little or no basis in fact. To accommodate our more imaginative members we tolerate some limited discussion of so-called "conspiracy theories" under the following circumstances: First, those discussions are not permitted in our heavily-trafficked Main forums; and second, those discussions cannot stray too far into Crazyland (eg: chemtrails, black helicopters, 9/11 death rays or holograms, the "New World Order," the Bilderbergers, the Illuminati, the Trilateral Commission, the Freemasons, alien abduction, Bigfoot, and the like). In addition, please be aware that many conspiracy theories have roots in racism and anti-semitism, and Democratic Underground has zero tolerance for bigoted hate speech. In short, you take your chances.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=termsofservice

What I noticed happening not long after DU3 rolled out, is that the not-so-bright among the regular CT'er crowd ignored the new TOS and the fair warnings given, and kept right on with their fanatical, lunatic speculations. PPR's soon followed, and not a moment too soon. The more perceptive among them simply avoid "Creative Speculation," knowing full well that if they indulged their desire to pontificate on chemtrails and moonbeams and the like, they would be shown the proverbial door. I can think of several prolific CT posters who haven't been seen down here in months, and I suspect for those very reasons.

One welcome side-benefit of all of this is we see less of the deliberate rule-breaking that CT'ers frequently engaged in on DU2 just because they could with few repercussions as regards General Discussion.

On DU2, you would frequently see CT'ers brazenly post obvious conspiracy theory material in GD knowing full well (a) they were breaking the rules and (b) that it would eventually get moved to the 911 forum. They did this because they wanted at least a portion of the much larger audience in GD to follow them down into the 911 dungeon to comment on their goofy speculations, especially on a busy news day when the mods were backed up with more pressing alerts regarding more serious rules violations.

I once asked a CT'er why, knowing the rules against doing so, she simply went right ahead and did it anyway - and she basically told me that she did it because she could, and that it was far more important that people knew about the loony conspiracy theory she was peddling than following some rules on a discussion board. In other words, she felt herself above the rules, as the vast majority of CT'ers do: their "cause" is just "too important" to waste time observing the proprieties, you see.

Now, with the new DU3 TOS, your average CT'er is well aware that it is likely they will simply be banned outright for posting CT'er bullshit in GD, as opposed to the thread simply being moved down here with no repercussions whatsoever. That has been a welcome respite to what went on at DU2, where we seemed to get a spurt of CT'er bullshit on the main pages at least once every couple of weeks or so, especially if some natural disaster, 911/JFK anniversary, or spy-related story was dominating the news cycle.