Probably the thing I loved about it most was the fact that I could talk directly with people that I felt had a real impact in the world

Scientists/Researchers

Journalists

Activists

Politicians

Subject Matter Experts (for the fields I am interested in)

There were (when I was using it) a large number of "troll" accounts, and bots, but it was normally easy to distinguish the wheat from the chaff

You could also engage in meaningful conversations with complete strangers - because, like Usenet, the rules for debate were widely adopted, and transgression results in shunning (something that I rarely see beyond twitter to be honest)

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macintux 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Yep, I effectively landed my favorite job by engaging with the Erlang community on Twitter. I miss it, but it just got to be too toxic during the 2016 election cycle (in fairness, everything was too toxic then, and it hasn’t gotten better since).

	▲	awesome_dude 32 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		I think that ALL communities become toxic as they grow I often hear that one community, or another, is "really good, not toxic at all, which is true when it starts (for tech, whilst it's "new" and everyone is still interested in figuring out how it works, sharing their learnings, and actively working to encourage people to also take interest) Then idealism works it way in - this community is the greatest that every existed ever - and whatever it is centred is the best at whatever Then - all other things are bad, you're <something bad> if you think otherwise And, boom, toxicity starts to abound For me, I've seen it so many times, whether in motorised transport (Motorcycles vs cars, then Japanese bikes vs British/European/American then individual brands (eg Triumph vs Norton), or even /style/ of bike (Oh you ride a sport bike, when clearly a cruiser is better...)) In the tech scene it's been Unix vs Microsoft, then Microsoft vs Linux or Apple, and then... well no doubt you've seen it too