Discussions online tend to be appalling, filled with racism, homophobia and even spelling mistakes. Youtube, for all its joys, has little else below the videos. Slashdot, for the more geeky, is not as bad as its reputation, but still more or less invented flame wars. As for the Scotsman and Herald commenters, well, we've talked about them a lot and I'm not going to go into that well of despair again.
Besides, I didn't bring you here to depress you. I brought you here so I could make you happy and share Metafilter with you. If you have another nominee for best discussions online, let me know, and I'll explain why Metafilter is better. The material linked to is endlessly fascinating, and the discussions bring in new ideas, often very informed, often funny, and, sure, sometimes pointless. Tip - the discussions aren't easy to find at first - click the "n comments" link under a story.
Recent examples include an interesting discussion on fuel costs, an explanation of online ecology in a hacking thread, and a thread on what sounds like The Best Wine Ever, including comments from people lucky enough to have tried it.
And one of the key reasons why it works, and isn't full of comment spam? They charge a one-off $5 to join. Plus some good moderation, and real community pressure to keep the site on track.
(Honourable mention for discussion: When Saturday Comes, formerly just sport)
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