I think the widespread use of journals and blogs were a major player in killing off the "personal" sorts of posts.

I think the causes for the lack of "intellectual" debates, specifically, around here is twofold. First, as already mentioned, people are very familiar with each other, and are sensitive to offending anybody in a political/theological/philosophical/etc debate. Second, I think the taboo on discussing previously-discussed topics doesn't help matters, either. Nobody wants to bring up, say, a death penalty discussion because "it's already been done". (Death penalty comes to mind because I seem to recall somebody explicitly mentioning in a thread on it that it had already been discussed before, so leave it. I could be wrong). It also doesn't help that one can't "bump" an old discussion to the front page on this forum like one can on others. You have to hope people are checking the "recent messages" page to notice.

Another reason for a more general downward trend in posting is that it's a self-fulfilling sort of cycle. Nobody wants to post if they don't think anybody else is around and will respond. That's typically why I only check here once a day, at the absolute most, and hardly ever even contemplate posting, whereas other communities I'm checking and posting all day long. Less people posting just reinforces the notion in others that they shouldn't bother posting as much.

I think the "closedness" of the community Zarniwoop mentioned is also part of it. I log in to chat every once in a while to check memos, and it's still pretty much the same people I've been seeing in there for years. Same deal on the forum. Fresh blood has a way of keeping online communities going. New perspectives, worldviews, points of view, whatever you want to call it, help keep things interesting. When one feels it's possible to confidently guess what everybody is going to say in response, one is not as inclined to say anything. Which is sort of like what Zarn also said about the familiarity of the community.