>It seems to me that toxicity of online communities has risen immensely. I don't know if that's the case. For context, I've been posting online for ~25 years;

>It seems to me that toxicity of online communities has risen immensely. I don't know if that's the case. For context, I've been posting online for ~25 years; and the Usenet flamewars that preceded me were available to read in archives even then. Truth is, people have been arguing vociferously and personally for their opinions for years. What has "risen immensely" is people who can't seem to tolerate argument, or heated debate, or trolling, and allow it to impact their personal life. Some of this is because it's no longer under a pseudonym, so it does actually have some potential to roll over into real life; some of this is because we're involved in some efforts to actively change discourse in general, efforts that have amplified over the past few years. Some of these efforts are good. We can disagree without being mean, we can discuss hard topics without being ghoulish. Some of these efforts are bad. We can determine truth from fiction without the Ministry of Truth at Twitter telling us what is and isn't a thoughtcrime. We can grow a thick skin and handle someone using mean language without having to dox them and get them fired from their job. But will we?