PG: The biggest source of stress for me at YC was running HN

I started an internet forum in 2006 whose audience was almost entirely female. It grew to a reasonable size, not huge, but what was remarkable was a nearly complete lack of trolls, arguments, and bad behavior. We saw that women just engage differently online, with a premium on expressing positive sentiments and encouraging each other to contribute constructively. Of course I don't want to generalize, but the removal of young men at their testosterone peak age from anonymous forums is remarkable.

I've been part of new mother forums when my wife was pregnant - the bitchiness and the flexing on each other was massive. Either you were tone deaf to it or some other factor prevented that on your site.

I think it's simply because 2006 was a different (and better) time when it comes to social networking on the internet.

Computers were still more niche, more complex and required more effort to use which acted as a built-in filter; if you invest all this effort into getting onto the forum to participate there's a higher chance that you legitimately want to contribute constructively.

Nowadays, every idiot out there has access to an internet browser and already has a social media account (and can use it to log into most other websites which implement social login for the sake of growth) and start spewing bullshit.

I have noticed a similar trend when it comes to online PC gaming. I used to play a shooter game (Crysis) back in ~2008 and the atmosphere on servers was always great; the chat was respectful, there were actual discussions happening in-game and I haven't seen any disrespect, rage or anger. Nowadays I play Battlefield and the chat is mostly empty, only interrupted by insults and the occasional server info message. Console gaming introduces voice chat and seems dominated by kids swearing their lungs out. I guess back in the day the cost of a machine capable to run these games acted as a filter, where as nowadays everyone has access to them, even those that shouldn't.

Perhaps the exorbitant price of a PC that could run Crysis well enough to even think about multiplayer acted as a filtering mechanism?

There's something to this. Online PC gaming communities can be really problematic, but online console gamers tend to be even worse. I think it's the younger age and lower bar to entry.

The CS 1.6 community could be pretty toxic circa 2007. At least in France.