Comment by conductr

This. It’s the core difference in forums causing the discourse to be higher quality. They were all communities after all. Some, I admired and learned from as a mere visitor as I knew my contribution wasn’t additive. So I just never joined, Reddit invites all to engage in the “discussion” which devolves quickly to essentially potty humor.

Some forums, I joined and contributed and became a member of that community. There were friendships and personalities behind the usernames. They sprung into IRL friendships in a few cases. On Reddit, I hardly ever see the same username twice. It may as well be fully AI generated, I wouldn’t know the difference.