Online communication greatly suffers from lack of context. When you talk to someone face to face a lot of the message is coming from the body language and the t

Online communication greatly suffers from lack of context. When you talk to someone face to face a lot of the message is coming from the body language and the tone of the voice, this makes it clear when the person is joking, serious, naive, confused or whatever reason to look in disagreement with you in a written online conversation. This keeps things from escalating most of the time. Not online. The measures I took for myself: - ignore conversations with lower importance. - argue with people I know, I trust they are smart enough to understand the discussion and interesting enough to communicate with. Ignore strangers, there is always some stranger that is wrong on Internet, it does not matter, it is not your job to "fix" it - read several times before answering and read my answer several times before pushing the button if the discussion is heated - take in consideration cultural differences. I find even this place very different for me (Eastern Europe), I see myself downvoted for apparently no reason (but there is one, I guess), I see opinions that look strange or even outrageous - I figured out most of these are due to cultural differences. Diversity in not what we wish to be, not yet (diversity in opinions).