That’s rose coloured. Maybe people were more intelligent, but even 10 years ago people would absolutely flame each other in GitHub issues on public projects.
But yes; even newsgroups, BBSes, etc. were subject to this kind of stuff. People have always been people, even smart people with money to purchase computers.
Yes, "good ol' days" types will always move the goalposts further and further back when you point out that things were exactly the same in the mythical time period they want to return to
Botnets weren't a thing, either.