> I'm a member of some paid forums that is far better

Such as? I've been looking for someplace to pay for because it's better

It's very topic/interest specific, not a general forum: Green Building Advisor.

Also, I have some private email groups in which I only have thoughtful discussion with people I know and trust (though don't always agree with).

I don't know if any general paid forums though.

There's Something Awful which is fairly general and charges a one time fee, but it's much more poorly operated than HN.

SA used to be in a troll war with the old Slashdot.org tech forum. 4chan was a later 'spinoff' built by a Something Awful user, and taking much of its initial community from there. Given these facts I've never thought of Something Awful as especially free from toxicity.

They also used to be very toxic to the the Church of Scientology and Habbo Hotel. Nevar forget.

Pool's closed!

But that's Anonymous, not SA.

Metafilter has remarkably high-quality discussion given its size.

I've been a member of various private email lists over the years which can be good, though those seem to have an active lifespan of 5--10 years, with 10 being a pretty extreme outlier.

Those communities become quite insular over time, and tend to retain less-interesting and spin out more interesting contributors.

> Metafilter has remarkably high-quality discussion given its size.

Here's an example of the toxicity in Metafilter:

https://www.metafilter.com/194412/Canadas-Protest-on-Wheels#...

I don't even feel comfortable quoting it here.

As you can see it's the 3rd most favorited comments in that thread.

I wasn't even cherry picking, it was the first story I clicked on.

What specifically are you pointing out as the toxic behaviour?

> What specifically are you pointing out as the toxic behaviour?

I am not the the grandparent, but with your permission, may I ask you …

Do you agree that “pie-hole” is deprecatory?

Do you agree that the question “who cares what X says?” is likely dismissive rhetoric, rather than a genuine expression of interest in who the people are who pay attention to X?

> Do you agree that the question “who cares what X says?”

Perhaps I've become desensitized, but "toxic" is not a synonym for "not supportive". Being dismissive of something or someone, or not agreeing with someone for that matter, does not mean a community or person is toxic. It just means you don't agree or support someone or something, and instead you have different opinions and support different positions.

On a similar post here I was given a lot of flak for posting anti-Nazi sentiments, I didn't realize that it was such a charged topic considering how it's Canadian truckers boycotting mask mandates as the mask mandates are ending and how neo-nazis are showing up in support for the whole thing.

I mean, generally, if I am at a large gathering and Nazis show up and they're on my side I would hope I would have a nice long think about what I was doing at that moment but some of these people are failing to realize that the sentiment of "they're on MY side, so it's okay now" increases the likelihood of people ending up on their side as well in the future.

There's a wide chasm between what the government and media portray this protest as, and the reality on the ground.

The following channel contains hundreds of hours of raw unedited video:

https://www.youtube.com/c/Ottawalks/videos

I challenge you to find one nazi flag there.

If you can't find any, then maybe you should rethink how much trust you place in your news sources.

What exactly prevents whoever filmed this of simply not posting any clip that's offensive? Because I've seen many videos and photos of hate symbols, and there are quite a few examples of assault and harassment

> What exactly prevents whoever filmed this of simply not posting any clip that's offensive?

It's not clips, it's live unedited raw video.

If you want to be 100% sure, you can watch it live.

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=ottawa+live&sp=...

> I challenge you to find one nazi flag there.

You mean in the videos extensively edited and cherry-picked to hide any reference to Nazi flags or any hate symbol?

No, he means the raw unedited videos, like the ones on channel he linked. The extensively edited and cherry-picked videos are the ones shown by corporate media and partisans.

> No, he means the raw unedited videos, like the ones on channel he linked.

Is it though? Things don't magically disappear from raw footage. Either you edit it out or not show inconvenient footage.

I mean, all this gaslighting requires you in the very least to accuse other footage from the same events and involving the same people of being fabricated.

> I would hope I would have a nice long think about what I was doing

Whenever I encounter vegetarians I remind them that Hitler also was one. For some reason they usually just scoff.

Well, yeah, because that's a dick move and not relevant.

Metafilter isn’t toxic at all unless you have the wrong opinions.

And this is the takeaway for everyone using any platform anywhere. The fundamental reality is people disagree with other people.

> Metafilter isn’t toxic at all unless you have the wrong opinions.

Echo chambers have that effect on people.

NasaSpaceFlight forums' L2. I've never been in there, but everyone who has says that it is the best forum on the internet.

I'm guessing something like Metafilter's buy-in.

Metafilter was extremely toxic. If it's sanguine now, it's only because everybody with other views was driven from the site.

I think I tried reading Metafilter once; it was a thread discussing whether men rape for power or for pleasure, and anytime a man tried posting in the thread they were driven off for not "centering women".

Although that style of discourse was pretty common at the time, quite popular on livejournal and later tumblr.

Lately I see complaints about it being full of people who tell you to go to therapy as a solution for everything. Which I didn't even know was a type.

> most well moderated free forum

It’s the most well moderated free forum that has a broad scope of topics. Many of the major domain-focused forums (for cars, modeling, collecting) are well managed by moderators and a community who like to see dense value for the topic at hand, low tolerance for unrelated conversation, and see their hobby as a refuge from the noise everywhere else in life. On HN, even though nominally focused, any and all topics make it on here.