I’d say the recent charter school topic illustrates your point nicely:
Joe_Ventura pops up to defend the principle of charter schools which turns out (quelle surprise) to be a not universally popular point. The post gets a few likes but also attracts a few responses arguing with the post.
A bit more to-and-fro, all perfectly within the bounds of normal discourse and the site rules but it does end up with:
As others have said, I don’t know how that sort of thing can be remedied. Essentially, it is due to people not being willing to continue arguing. Which arguably is a good thing - for their blood pressure if nothing else.
But then, if few people raise ‘contrary’ opinions, others look at the comments and decide “It’s all one-sided, they’re not interested/open to other views…” and don’t bother to post either or do so with a “this post isn’t going to be published”.
