And to counter your claim here - someone's "lived experience" is not a sufficient ballast for blindly accepting an anecdote.
People's memories suck. And more often than not subjective experiences don't map onto reality, especially when negative or stressful emotions are involved.
One negative experience on an IRC/forum can cloud a person's entire recollection simply on the basis of the Negativity Bias.
The point isn't to figure out whether these communities were a net positive or negative. I wasn't a target of any of the racism, sexism, homophobia, etc on these forums and chat rooms but I sure saw a lot of it everywhere I participated at a level that was kind of ridiculous in some cases. It clearly had impact on the people it was targeting, the degree to which it "clouds a persons recollection" is entirely irrelevant.
Is your point that their recollection should be dismissed? That they were too sensitive? It's unclear what this response's intent is.
People's memories suck. And more often than not subjective experiences don't map onto reality, especially when negative or stressful emotions are involved.
One negative experience on an IRC/forum can cloud a person's entire recollection simply on the basis of the Negativity Bias.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negativity_bias