[memracom]

So why do you publish your innermost thoughts to a bunch of strangers on Facebook like that? Even in the online world it is possible to find many different forums where you can discuss things with people who are open for real discussion and conversation. Don't let Facebook grind everyone down to the lowest common denominator. Use many forums.

Become a regular in the comments section of certain blogs. Create aliases and join web forums or email lists or a Reddit subcommunity or something. And encourage diversity of discussion groups.

Just being on HackerNews is already a step in the right direction. And maybe some of us will build apps and sites that encourage people to form smaller groups to discuss issues without having to fight off trolls and uninformed newbie types.

The Internet used to have a lot more of that when mailing lists were the main way to have discussions. And there were services like the Well, and Compuserve that put a lot of effort into managing interest groups with sysops who kept them from getting out of hand.

The WELL in particular, put a lot of effort into the psychological aspects of humans in groups, in writing their guidelines for users and for the sysops managing the groups.