I’m at a conference between sessions, and there are small groups of people standing around, discussing the latest developments at breakneck speed. Back and forth. Talking a mile a minute. Saying half an idea out loud, and letting others fill in the blanks. Tons of jargon and inside references I don’t understand. I squeeze into one of the larger circles, and I would like to join the conversation, at least to understand what they are talking about, and perhaps add something to the conversation, if I can. I finally see an opening, and ask a question. Each person in the group is suddenly silent and stares at me for a few seconds. Finally one person says, “RTFM noob”. Everyone stifles a laugh, and the conversation picks up where it left off.
Count the number of “posts” in this example. Hundreds, or maybe low thousands. How many were toxic? One. Doing the math… Yeah. That’s much less than 10%.
Does this feel toxic to me? Oh yeah. Does it feel toxic to everyone else? Some would say yes. Some would agree with you and say, “No. This does not feel like a toxic wasteland to me. I’ll admit, there’s a small amount of toxic discussion, but at least it’s much less toxic than other conferences I have attended.”
My point is that you can have a forum where less than 10% of the comments are toxic, and yet that forum can feel very toxic to some of the people. So your 10% challenge does not prove anything.