First off, if someone likes my comment, I get a feeling that the person actually read it and liked what I wrote. It feels strange, but it makes me want to write better comments. And there are some people whose likes are extra special, because I find their comments insightful myself.
The other thing is that here, I am just Fnordius. No attempts to make me be my “real” identity, and if I wanted I could go full Discordian Saint Fnordius as I do elsewhere, but I don’t feel the need to be so silly and pretentious here. Besides, I dropped the Saint about a decade ago.
But most of all? This feels like a chosen family. I just had to say it.
Aw.
But I get what you mean; you create your own identity in a place like this, you don’t carry your MeatSpace baggage with you. That is kind of liberating.
Here are my primary reasons for choosing this on-line community: excellent moderation by @orenwolf and the ever-improving BBS system that supports his work as a moderator (props to @codinghorror and the Discourse team). Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, etc. are sorely (and for such large, well-funded companies, shockingly) lacking on both counts.
A small thing which I dislike about Reddit and Disqus particularly is downvoting. If I post something here and it doesn’t get many likes I know people didn’t like it, but I don’t really get that nasty feeling of rejection that comes from actually seeing your comment score drop. And I feel that even having the option to explicitly downvote (as opposed to flagging something which goes against community standards) makes those fora more divisive, polarized places than they otherwise would be.
Three cheers for @orenwolf , @codinghorror, and all the talented authors that make this a good place to hang out. Here’s to awesome content, an awesome forum and a minimum of bullshit getting in between them.
