I think there's not a great way for people to learn how to be pro-social on fear forums. The feedback signals and coaching that help people develop social skill

I think there's not a great way for people to learn how to be pro-social on fear forums. The feedback signals and coaching that help people develop social skills IRL are much, much weaker online and reputation has much less value. Moreover, a lot of people are initially attracted to these forums due to lack of success in IRL contexts. And then there's often these parasocial assymetries between the authors, who have high reputation and visibility, and the commenters. I don't want to paint the state of digital forums in a completely negative light. Online communities keep it real, to an extent. There are many examples of high reputation people getting much deserved pushback, when they're used to sycophancy IRL. And there are also many occasions where valuable insights from fairly anonymous people float to the surface, due to the democratization of these forums. It's interesting that 30 years into the Internet, the problem of facilitating digital community is still very much unsolved.