It feels like people are a lot nicer here than on Twitter and Reddit, and even when people disagree, it’s generally civil and not an all-out flame war. Also, there’s no algorithm promoting outrage all the time.
For me, the anticipation of toxicity was a huge deterrent for me ever participating in real discussions, but here I feel like I can be myself.
I think it’s healthier this way.
I’ve been at various points on reddit where I would open the replies in a background tab and just close it without reading them… or, and maybe this sounds weird, hold my hand up over replies so I could screen them without reading them so I could ignore insulting or provocative replies and not be tempted to engage.