The highest-quality discussion that I&#x27;ve found on the Internet generally came from &quot;phpBB&quot;-based website forums, built around specific interests or communities.<p>Part of the reason for that is the common interest in a shared niche.  However, I believe that most important factor by far is the lack of up or down &quot;voting&quot; buttons.<p>On any platform with voting, the &quot;imaginary Internet points&quot; tend to drive the user experience.  Upvotes trigger reward behavior, just like the social aspect of Farmville-style mindless freemium games.  Downvotes trigger social anxiety and drive behavior also.  Trolls relish it, while normal users are often insecure about it.  Even on an &quot;elite&quot; platform like Hacker News, how many comments basically boil down to, &quot;Hey guys, why did some of you downvote my last comment???&quot;.<p>Basically, voting turns a discussion platform into an MMO video game for a large portion of the userbase.  It leads to groupthink, &quot;brigades&quot; and manipulation, low-quality memes and running jokes, etc.  I think its negative impact on high-quality discussion easily matches or exceeds its positive impact on self-moderation.<p>Ultimately, I think the ideal model of discussion platform governance is a &quot;benevolent dictatorship&quot; of active mods, without user voting.  It doesn&#x27;t scale very well, but it&#x27;s the common denominator among the highest-quality communities I&#x27;ve ever seen.  The problem is since a micro-generation of Internet users is now accustomed to the MMO model, online discussion without voting is just... well... <i>boring</i>.  Going back to that is like trading processed corn syrup for organic vegetables.  Most aren&#x27;t going to do it.<p>Downvote if you disagree.  :)