Susan G
It definitely feels like the Coffee House is a strange clique now, although some "serious" threads are apparently allowed to pass through unscathed. I'm not comfortable posting a "serious" thread, since I have no way of knowing if it would pass whatever test is in place before it was morphed into a joke.
Weird, though. I liked it better the way it was before.
-Susan
The CH, like any forum or subforum, reflects the people who post there. Thus the only way to change the culture (if need be) is to contribute.
Personally I don't think "clique" is an appropriate term, since there's not much discouragement of anyone posting whatever they like here. There may be some inside jokes, but I don't think they are really all that "inside" since they are generally fairly readily explained to anyone who asks. And things may get morphed into jokes at times, but it's almost always just pure wordplay and puns rather than any reflection on the original post.
Unfortunately, sometimes people here do not always honor the seriousness of a given thread, but I'd like to believe that that problem is not unsurmountable.
The "strange" part is spot on though.