I'll give you an "I don't know" back. IMHO the best communities are those that retain bitter rivals. The worst are the ones that have a high churn of beginners parroting received wisdom in an echo chamber without any of the necessary experience.

I love nothing more than when high level participants who have fundamentally irreconcilable differences have explosive but on-topic fights. Even better when they surprise themselves and agree. These are special experiences you can learn so much from.

Definitely. One of my favorite IRC channels is pretty much exactly this. Everyone disagrees about what their favorite technology is or what their political views are on said channel, but arguments are encouraged and often last hours at a time. Since all users (including moderators) are displayed as +v (voice), it helps create a sense of comfort disagreeing with people because there's no perceived risk to disagreeing with moderators/"power users" and in turn basically any discussion or opinion is welcome to be voiced. In a way, the friendships formed there are nicer than on other channels because you're comfortable bringing anything that comes to mind up without tarnishing your relationship and just arguing it out (+ maybe even changing your mind). This should be what online communities are designed to be like.

Healthy, positive, and upbeat are not synonymous.

My real world academic community is "healthy" in the sense that we get along, have great conversations, and don't deride each other needlessly.

It's also upbeat. We're all mostly excited about what we're working on and happy to be working together.

It's not positive. If you say something stupid, we'll call it stupid. Some days you will feel stupid.

If the goal of a community is to keep everyone always feeling positive, it's never going to be healthy in the long run.

I'm copy/pasting this response that I shared with someone else; I hope that's okay, but I wanted to explain what we meant. I completely agree that negative content has a place and is valuable. Not being able to disagree or only being able to say nice things defeats the purpose of conversation.

Our goal, and what we meant by using the word "positive" is that Imzy, and the communities on it, enrich people's lives in a positive way. That doesn't mean every comment, post, or discussion is positive. It means that I come away a better, more informed person from the discussions I have, or maybe I just enjoy my time there.

What that means is that extreme or sustained harassment that makes people unhappy, fear for their lives, or feel like they can't participate isn't okay. Communities that exist solely for hate aren't cool. But disagreement and even voicing opinions that are very unfavorable can still exist. Even saying mean things to people is okay, unless that's all you do all day following around a user or something. We all become better people when we can share our own perspectives and hear the perspectives of others, especially when they are different from our own. Otherwise you end up with an echo chamber.

Trying to avoid "extreme or sustained harassment" is in it's mission something much more narrow than clearing a place until it's "positive".

While I could agree with "We all become better people when we can share our own perspectives and hear the perspectives of others, especially when they are different from our own.", I don't think that the overemphasis on perspectives makes it a particular trustworthy statement. It feels like it's a preparation for the demand of a relativist language. A conversation where everyone feels right, even if they aren't. Which appears to me to be some kind of a no-grow area.

>My secondary forum about the Wario series has a very upbeat atmosphere without too much in the way of disagreement

...but that is a niche topic about a fictional universe. When a discussion forum must deal with real universe topics, like funding community projects, dealing with violence, etc., the forum will import all of the existing viewpoints, many of which may be at odds with each other and/or not "positive" in relation to each other.

Of course, that's another good point. Some topics are more inclined to drama and disagreements than others. Put two people in a room and have them talk about politics or religion, and they might well want to kill each other before the hour is up. In cases like those, even a small community will have to deal with different viewpoints and drama. So yeah, point taken. Less serious topics tend to be more civil.

That said, a lot of such topics do sometimes end up drawing their own vicious disagreements and flame wars and drama outbreaks. Just look at sports. Not a topic with a lot of impact real world wise, unless you're participating in it. But various fans of different teams are very much at odds with each other and discussions can easily turn heated. Same with fans of certain fandoms, with My Little Pony, Sonic the Hedgehog, Five Nights at Freddy's and Harry Potter being good examples.

So it's probably based on two sets of axis':

1. The size of the community

2. The 'seriousness' of the topic

A small community about a less important topic will be mostly rather calm. So lesser known games, lesser known sports, less known social activities, etc.

A small community about a 'serious' topic will often be prone to disagreements, though they might turn less toxic.

A large community about a less important subject will be about the same as a smaller community about a more serious one, assuming its fans/participants are not absolutely insane.

A large community about a deeply political/religious/ultra 'serious' topic will probably resemble a war zone.

A large forum based on a fandom with a lot of drama will be fairly similar to a political forum.

And if it's meant to have no rules, is aimed at trolls or certain types of hackers or about a subject which is about fifty thousand miles off one side of the political spectrum, abandon all hope ye who enter here.