alt Hacker Newsejecting jerks is something forums did better than social media, even if the definition of jerk varied widely and was forum-specific. I can't imagine a forum doing something like promoting the user with the most interacted with posts; they'd probably lock the thread and consider banning
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Terr_ • today at 5:42 PM
The undercurrent here for me is barriers to entry and monopolies and network-effects, ex:
Con: You had to search to find a community.
Pro: There were lots of independent communities that had competition in case one was badly moderated.
And if you did that now you'd probably have no forum left because everyone has been trained to generate engagement.