There were exceptions. There was one forum I was a part of where none of us knew each other in real life and yet we had long, intense, good-faith discussions on touchy topics that stayed meaningful.

I think what made it different was that we were a tight-knit group that was invested in our pre-existing relationship: we started as a clan in a very cooperative video game and we had each other's backs every day in-game. The political and religious discussions occurred in our private forum in the off-topic section.

So I suspect you're half right: the conversations have to occur with people you trust and respect. But at least in the early 2000s, they didn't have to occur in-person.

What matters seems to be not that they be in-person but that they be private and that all involved cherish their relationships with each other. A lot of what happened in the last decade is that people have left the private spaces and moved into public spaces, where such conversations really do become toxic quickly. Even on Facebook with posts set to friends-only, the system encourages adding so many "friends" that it may as well be public. By the time most people get to friend #300, neither of them really cares about the relationship, so meaningful discussion about touchy topics becomes impossible.

Early 2000s forums were a special place. None I was part of were quite as close-knit as yours sounds, but the general quality of discourse of those I frequented back then was a good deal higher than what’s commonly seen on social media these days.

It’s too bad they’ve gone extinct. The few old style forums that are still hanging on do so by way of sheer momentum (huge numbers of posters) or by having become fringe echo chambers and are just as bad or worse than social media.

> " There was one forum I was a part of where none of us knew each other in real life and yet we had long, intense, good-faith discussions..."

I'm curious what happened to that forum?

Each of us lost interest in the game and eventually the clan disbanded. The forum hung on for a few more years mostly as an archive (we'd check in occasionally), but eventually broke and stopped serving requests.

FOH?

Agreed. I think the anonymous nature of the internet dooms important or interesting conversations.

I think what has happened is that people cannot filter their conversations by age anymore. This is pretty unique actually - I can’t think of any situation in real life where I’d engage seriously with a teenager. Perhaps family, or maybe if I was a teacher.

And yet, any conversation online is guaranteed to have the full range of age groups.

Just as a chain is only as strong as it’s weakest link, a conversation can only be as mature as it’s least mature participant.

It’s not fair to say that all teenagers are immature, but they are all inexperienced. And what has happened is that online conversations tend to resemble high school gossip, rather than serious discussions of important topics.

To be fair, there was a good decade and a half, maybe two, where Usenet was the place to have deep, meaningful and respectful conversations. Most netiquette conventions were first established there.

Then Eternal September happened, binaries and spam flooded the network, and users looking for good discussions moved on.

Reddit went through a similar change more rapidly, and even today, despite of the shitposting, bots and Reddit Inc.'s disregard of its userbase, there are niche communities where well-intentioned discussion takes place.

There are also even more niche old school forums or IRC communities where people can take refuge from the rest of the internet.

But I do agree that HN is still a surprisingly respectful forum. Not necessarily because of Y Combinator's shepherding or a small team of herculean moderators, but because the community is self-moderated. I do think this will change and become more difficult, as more new users join the site. Longtime users have surely noticed the change already.

> You do it in person, with people you trust and respect. It's always been this way, even during the heyday of the free internet.

Sure, that would be the preferred way. But the reason we communicate online is because it's often easier to find communities of people with similar interests, than doing the same locally. Anonimity also has a positive aspect, in that it makes interaction easier for getting points across, as we don't let our human biases influence the discussion, and the merit of any point is weighed on its own. Discussions in person, especially around hot topics, often devolve into shouting matches and personal insults. Not that online ones don't, but typing text is often enough to assemble our thoughts in a calmer way.

OTOH, there's the obvious lack of human connection missing from online and text-only discussions. But then again, once a community is well established, in person meetups can happen. :)

> To be fair, there was a good decade and a half, maybe two, where Usenet was the place to have deep, meaningful and respectful conversations. Most netiquette conventions were first established there.

There were BBS-era networks that also had meaningful conversations. The Well (The Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link, ‘85), Citadel networks (‘81), Fidonet (‘83), and many others.

> led to misunderstandings and bad faith assumptions

The assumption of bad faith is a recent phenomenon, i remember when the internet did not a priori assume that everyone was speaking in bad faith. I dont think it s rose tinted glasses, it's just that that thing did not scale