I think I may have DP confused with Debate Policy... There's Debate Politics and Debate Policy. I believe that Jimmy came up with Debate Policy, he was the creator of USMessageboards though for certain.
USMB used to be pretty good. Then rules were added, and more rules, and more requirements.
I'm on a 90-day ban from there for saying some people need busted right in the mouth.
Well, the facts are, some do.

It's still pretty good. Not as great as it may have been in the past, no bulletin board is these days.
Almost as free as here.

That's a good thing, IMO. I'm from the Wild West days of the internet anyway.
The "carding the biggest black dildo you can buy to your enemies" days.
I never did that. I did not do CC fraud, because no. But it was around and some dude gave me like 2200 of them and most worked. I checked.
Never did anything with them, though. That's not me.
Back in the days when "Bih, you know you're the vice-president of NAMBLA" were the insults we used.
I am aware not to do that here.

I know who YTCracker and Beto's "Cult of The Dead Cow" were.
YTCracker was elite, and Beto's gang were lamers.
I was allowed in the MAC room, right? One dude with like 2-3 underlings ran the MAC room, and not everybody could stay in there.
A lot of real information got passed around in there. Somebody new comes in? It all clams up until the new one lets them know who they are.
Beto's gang came in talking smack and they kicked them out and reset all their passwords, like 7-8 accounts in 30 seconds.

It was the most complete AOL smackdown I ever saw in my life.
I was a PC guy, too.