Bad as Gin-Gin was, at least she came here because of her interest in timeshares, and only got sucked into the political morass once the political crap got started. Once the political stuff got going strong, it attracted additional people that came here ONLY for the political haranguing. The bad tempers and incivility spilled out into all areas of the board, not just the general discussion area. We lost many long term, valuable, active posters over it -- some because it became such a snake pit that it just was no longer fun to come here, others because they took umbrage when brought to task when they broke the rules. We also lost several admins and moderators for whom the hassle and abuse heaped upon them for just doing their jobs was more than they could take.
If you were not here then, you would not believe how bad it got, unless perhaps you frequent some of the more unruly usenet newsgroups.
As we say in our current rules: We've been down that road before, it was ugly, and we are not going there again.