I will illustrate with a hypothetical but realistic example. Sometimes people write a comment that seems to contradict something they said in an earlier comment. Suppose that on Forum A, other commenters who notice this are likely to say something like, “That’s not what you said earlier! Were you lying then, or are you lying now, huh?!” but that on Forum B, other commenters are likely to say something like, “This seems in tension with what you said earlier; could you clarify?” The culture of Forum B seems better at making it feel “safe” to change one’s mind without one’s social interest in not-being-called-a-liar being threatened.
In this case Forum B has a better culture than Forum A. People might change their mind, have nuanced opinions, or similar. It is only when people fail to engage with the point of the contradiction or give a nonsensical response that accusations of lying seem appropriate, unless one already has evidence that the person is a liar.
A good culture is somewhere in between, but closer to A than B. Forum B encourages people to equivocate and utter half-truths and forget what it means to tell the truth or to lie. Much better to have confrontations, edit older comments when you’ve changed your mind, and have your faced rubbed into your current internal contradictions; then you will at least notice them, and that’s the necessary prerequisite to correcting them, or if you won’t/can’t, observing they make you unreliable at reasoning in whatever matter presents itself.
In this case Forum B has a better culture than Forum A. People might change their mind, have nuanced opinions, or similar. It is only when people fail to engage with the point of the contradiction or give a nonsensical response that accusations of lying seem appropriate, unless one already has evidence that the person is a liar.
A good culture is somewhere in between, but closer to A than B. Forum B encourages people to equivocate and utter half-truths and forget what it means to tell the truth or to lie. Much better to have confrontations, edit older comments when you’ve changed your mind, and have your faced rubbed into your current internal contradictions; then you will at least notice them, and that’s the necessary prerequisite to correcting them, or if you won’t/can’t, observing they make you unreliable at reasoning in whatever matter presents itself.