> On one hand, this encourages real content and discussion over superficial "updoots to the left".
Yeah no, if you go back to the supposed USENET glory days you’ll find a sense of humor that, to be as charitable as possible, is incredibly cringey by today’s standards.
People smugly typing stuff like ‘Bahagaha ZAP LART!! plonk Welcome to my kill file, lamer!!!.’
Today you only really run into such bafflingly unfunny stuff in the Linux kernel mailing list— you know, supposedly hilarious things like ‘Come to the dark side, Sarah. We have cookies!’
(You may find a rare exception like a shaggy dog story about how a coin flip going differently would result in HP’s UNIX, HP-UX, being called PH-UX.)