As I remember it on the day itself it was a good source of news both good and bad and the community spirit was there. But then the community became less important because people had Things To Say about the situation and there were more political angst and political policy posts in general and it seemed to get more and more concentrated on US politics - many, many threads gravitated in that direction and the world community was discussed much more than the local (fannish) one. I don't think it's ever quite recovered the balance. The Iraq war just fuelled that situation. But how do you work against that? It's a place for fans to say what they want, and a whole lot of them want to say things about politics.