I believe you are the first to speak about the elephant in the room. IMHO Doug's input in the site is waning. Probably there are good reasons for that. I also feel that the forum is slowly drifting to survivalism.
Possibly, but the moderators seem to do a reasonable job of shepherding the site. Doug is around, but he seems to believe in an old Klingon saying that goes "If you don't want it heard, don't say it....."
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Or perhaps he simply doesn't have anything to say?