I'd encountered one such newly-launched site, heralded as "a kinder, gentler Reddit" in 2016. Not only did the site itself collapse and fail a year later, but it failed, in the extreme, to live up to its promise, in part through the user community (always a confounding factor) but also through exceedingly poor moderation both by volunteer user mods and the site's paid staff and management.
I'll note: I was largely in agreement with the site's stated principles and politics, and still found myself very much on the dark side of it. Contrast with HN where I consider myself frequently contrarian and yet reasonably well tolerated.
In writing on the experience I called out the contrast with HN specifically. In part:
The really striking thing for me is that a bastion of one representation of what Internet critics, erm, criticise, HN, is proving much more effective at accomplishing and embodying the goals which Imzy, a "kinder, gentler" place, has set out to achieve.
... with a longer discussion of the things that seem to work particularly well. See:
https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/500ysb/the_imz...
I disagree with dang and sctb on occaision. I am disappointed that there are topics that HN doesn't seem able to discuss (and have called these out). I've been admonished a few times.
But on balance, the site works, and rewards time spent on it. And credit must go to dang and sctb.
Thanks, guys.
Same here. I believe I have been throttled unjustifiably on a couple of occasions, but so what. They responded quickly to my pleas for help and I also learned stuff. I feel very grateful to have this site as part of my life.