I think communities such as dev.to and CodeNewbies create great places to have pretty constructive and positive discussions and experiences. But I've found that most other places such as StackOverflow, Reddit, GitHub and even private Slack channels aren't such a positive experience.

I've often posted solutions, questions and things to genuinely bring a positive value to others in the other communities mentioned above, but often have a sour experience from them. Which leads to me either A) taking a break from the community , B) going through bouts of rage and self-doubt before coming to a place to reply with a, "Yo, I was just trying to help" or C) leave the community altogether.

Examples of what I've experienced:

• Created a local tech job board. Response from a local sub-reddit where it was shared by someone else. "Why? This looks ultra new (it was shared on launch day). Don't think it would be helpful to anyone."

After a polite reply back and confirming the obvious, the person felt I had justified it's creation and wanted to grab coffee.

• GitHub issue for an abandoned plugin. Shared a possible workaround, only to realize it wasn't actually working for me. Found an alt plugin that worked well and unblocked me from my problem.

Response from original creator of issue, "You're suggesting the use of an alternative plugin? That doesn't solve the issue with this one."

My response, simply giving you a solution that worked for me seeing as this plugin is abandoned.

/rant

So part venting and mostly serious about trying to figure out how to have better discussions in the communities we all belong to as devs. Would love to hear how you handle your not so positive interactions in dev communities.