I've been really enjoying my time here lately and I have noticed things.
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discussions are more chill. On Reddit people would get into flame wars over things and here while it happens it's not as bad, and I actually enjoy spending time here.
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people are nicer.
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moderation is amazing.
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diversity in thoughts is also amazing.
EDIT:
Image is made by me, please credit me if you use it. Other than that, it's on a 'do what you fucking want' license. Meaning, have fun and do what you want with it, I'm not your mom!
I've mostly just found that having downvotes ends up discouraging discussion (which is often the states reason for disabling them). With passive media that is already the normal state.
I only subbed to interests/hobbies and low-volume cute stuff, so I didn't really get the full effect. I've seen it used to make a disliked-by-some valid point disappear, but maybe 1-4 times a year? It certainly wasn't high on my list of Reddit vexes.
Yeah, it's not something I really saw in small communities, but once things get to what I'd think of as medium sized it started to be a problem.