[xhrpost]

I find searching reddit for niche things to be at least useful enough to point me in the right direction on some topics. But wow, discussion, even the small subs can be pretty toxic. It's sad as I'd love to have better discussion around various topics but every post feels like I'm walking on egg shells.

My theory is just that if anyone can join, and everything is anonymous and there is no barrier to entry [1], quality of communication will just be low. Makes me think about how some Ham Radio enthusiasts want to keep Morse Code as a requirement to get a license even though it's not really needed, it simply acts as a good filter for keeping less prudent people out of the eco-system. For web boards, maybe September will never end [2].

Hope this all isn't too cynical and please speak up if it sounds so.

[1] I realize HN is easy to join but is often seen as having far superior discussion than Reddit. I think there's just something about heavily technical article titles and topics that make it a bigger lift to want to jump in with trivial but aggressive arguing. [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September

[ajmurmann]

I am curious on what type of smaller subreddits you've seen toxicity. I find that smaller, hobby-related communities are really great and I rarely to never see toxicity. Looking at anything that has potential to be even remotely be related to politics immediately turns hostile. For example r/f1 usually is quite friendly, but when the topic shifts to how races should take place in different countries, it gets a lot more hostile (e.g. "don't race in Jeddah because human right!" - "Well, let's skip USA as well, because human right then"...)

[xhrpost]

I was heavily watching some of the stock/options trading communities and felt like even well worded questions were sometimes blown away and downvoted while others could ask completely noob questions covered immediately in pinned posts and get 100 replies.

[denimnerd42]

f1 is pretty toxic imo. it’s worse than nfl or nba. has to do with the nature of the sport being intricately rules based and it’s current high popularity I think.

[pixl97]

HN is easy to join, but is heavily moderated and doesn't put up with much crap. And manages to avoid most the toxicity. Probably because most political discussion is avoided.

[xhrpost]

That's a good point, need to remember all of the work the mods do.