What could be done about that aside from expecting people to just... be better? I think the shape of these forums induces those kinds of comments, even if the community and moderators make a real effort to uphold higher standards. And I think if I encountered the same people in a different kind of forum then I might have a higher quality conversation. Heck, my own comments would probably be a lot more constructive!
Real world example of what I'm thinking: I have a neighbor over one fence who has very different political views to mine. We have perfectly civil conversations in which we're both actually really engaged and trying to understand each others' perspectives and experiences, and not just keeping the peace by avoiding difficult topics. It feels like effort we put into the conversation is rewarded.
I can't shake the idea that there might be "one weird trick" (okay, maybe a handful used together) that could make it more rewarding to put more effort into online conversations on forums like Hacker News or Reddit. One I've wanted to try for a while is to recreate something along the lines of Slashdot's moderation system, but with room for a meta-conversation to take place in "moderation space" (in which all community members could participate) and for there to be opportunities for people to refine their comments in response to feedback — and for doing so to be the norm.
Maybe it's not that simple. That's okay, too. But I've seen different moderation strategies around the web produce very different results, so it seems to me that there should be plenty of room for experimentation, and a lot to learn from doing so.
