The main difference between forums and social networks is anonymity, and that the forum is written-only.
By definition, a forum is a platform used to bring in discussions, sharing ideas, or anything of a certain category, whether offline or online which means privacy/anonymity is just a feature that we took and implemented according to our needs.
Bitcointalk is special and for no reason I love the old school theme than the fancy UI of other forums and also forums that replicated bitcointalk tweaked some feature than has been requested by the community more often but still people here love to hangout and participate in the discussions than anywhere, probably because the active members with actual knowledge is more than anywhere else and we can't deny the participation of signature campaigns too.
I found this forum user interface to be perfect for the reading, even though it is out-dated but still it is effective. If you're someone who love to read that this is a good forum without any much distractions. Even the signature designs do not irritate you as there are no flashy pics etc. Also, no ads on the forum make it a good ready spot
Coming to the OP question, its been almost 5 months that the discussion of that topic are banned, but that's the rules and we have to obey on what's allowed to be discussed and what is banned. Still there is a lot other topics to discuss and while it can be frustrating to have restrictions on certain topics, it's good to focus on what can be discussed.
