why do so many discussions turn contentious?

I think the circumstance is endemic to people, as opposed to posters within this forum. Perhaps people interested in audio serves as a filter that attracts a certain level of personal evolution and is therefore skewed more toward the negative then another context, but I doubt it.People who are reactive, emotionally immature, spiteful, petty, and all sorts of others values and behaviors that we certainly don’t treasure manifest this level of development in their posts.Since I think that these are the root of what I consider to be misbehavior here, I don’t think they will change simply by giving feedback or pointing things like this out to the problem people. The stuff is rooted in personality and any sort of learning curve or lack of it as folks go through their lives. Therefore, I believe that strong moderating and editing is the only solution, but of course, like all of you, I have no control over that, and I’m subject to however the people that run this want to do things.All In all, I think it’s important to starve attention from attention seekers and not engage with those who want to create toxic engagement. So what I do is just read the beginning of a post and if it’s a rant or something rude, I stop reading. Responding to these folks just feeds them, in my opinion.

Great point. Some are here to be the most popular, contentious, and provocative just because they can. How can one deal with that?

He just told you, don’t respond.

Exactly @frogman.  There's been a number of posts in this thread alone thrown in that are clearly bait to get confrontational.  I refuse to take the bait.  I won't provide the fuel.