At the same time, none of that prevents Metafilter from being an echo chamber. I suspended my membership a couple of years back because I found the political discussions there increasingly toxic. Stepping even slightly outside the group consensus can lead to aggressive and sbusive pile-ons, and obvious moderation biases are often handwaved away on the grounds of 'community preferences.' I'm pretty liberal but I got tired of getting crucified for even considering/ analyzing opposing points of view rather than condemning them.
Metafilter qua persistent community has quite different dynamics from Ask Metafilter.
I remember your posts, and always appreciated your perspective.
I also canceled my membership a few years ago for the same reasons. Post and comment counts seem to be down significantly from those days, so there may have been an exodus.
I kept reading without participating for a while but eventually stopped. After a glance at the redesign I don't guess I'll be going back, though I'm sure there's some retro edition for people who prefer the denser version.
Metafilter qua persistent community has quite different dynamics from Ask Metafilter.