Why're people on Lemmy (and other forums) so toxic? What can you do beyond report, call out, and block?

You can learn to withstand negative social encounters without inflating a bubble around yourself. Might lead to a less distorted understanding of the world.
The left's propensity to block and ignore mean people left them completely unprepared to deal with the political reality they found themselves in.
I tend to feel like blocking should probably only be used by the exceptionally mentally fragile, or to curate unimportant, recreational communities.

It doesn't matter where you go, you will run into assholes. Assholes are a part of life. The great thing about social media, though, is you can ignore them/block them and never see them again. You can't really do that IRL, despite the commonly given advice against bullies (at least that I got growing up) is to ignore them.
You don't need to do anything more than what you've already mentioned. Report them if they are breaking rules, and block them so even if they aren't you don't have to deal with them anymore.

You can also leave.

Stick to subscriptions and don't join instances that are havens for trolls like hexbear and lemmygrad.
- Odd thing is I’ve had more bad LW and ML interactions then those two.
  
  ml is definitely a tankie instance but I remember .world being kinda center right/left to liberal for the most part. I'm on Mbin these days because I like the interface better, but blocking people and sticking to subs definitely helps IMO

I believe that most of what some call "toxic" online behaviour boils down to people who treat the unknown as if it was certain.
- That’s kind of how it is but the other way. I’ve noticed people just assume really quickly then write some rude reply and the clearly forming hive mind jumps in… not fun
  
  Following this logic, it's human behaviour that predates the internet. And social media catalyses it - what you write is exposed to more people, who know even less about you than RL people would, with access to even less of the context necessary to take conclusions about you and what you say. The "let's fill holes with shit we just made up!" process is still the same, but now there are even more holes to fill.
  And the dogpiling you mentioned (forming hive mind jumps in)? Well, it's still that "treating the unknown as if it was certain", but on steroids. Instead of treating what people say as potentially true/false, they treat it as certainly true/false and good/bad and anyone disagreeing/agreeing with you must be picking the right/wrong side.
  Perhaps that's a sign that our human nature leans towards tribalism, not towards rationality.
  I don't know a good solution for that. What I've been doing is
  pre-emptively blocking
  disregarding intentions - so I don't become part of the problem (or, if I am part of the problem, become less of)
  going "old man screams at cloud" style when I see this sort of assumption online, in the hopes that it changes something
  removing egregious examples of people who behave like this, specially in an accusatory way, from communities that I moderate.

One of the easiest things to do to avoid this is selecting communities and sticking with "subscribed." Despite the federated nature of Lemmy, I just hang out on Beehaw, because it's predictably not going to irritate me.
- That's a good choice. I'm rarely on beehaw, maybe I should change that.
  
  I'm rarely out of Beehaw, works like a charm.

Because that's what social media generates and all social media was a mistake.

I liberally use that block button. Even to whole communities & instances. Worrying about blocking a toxic user's speech from anyone's view but your own is not worth the effort (unless you happen to be a mod).
- That's helped me a lot as well :) but I wish the block wasn't one sided. It's an odd choice that the other user can still see our content.
  
  whatever we post is public... you can't stop someone from seeing public things. (Even if it worked the way you would like, they could browse anonymously or on a different account to see it). Blocking makes it convenient for you (so you don't have to look at public things that you don't want to see).

People using somewhat anonymous accounts feel that they can get away with behavior that would otherwise not be tolerated in real life. If someone doesn’t want to be subjected to such behavior, then there are few options. One of them being refraining from using online forums.
- I keep wondering, if forums and social media platforms required ID verification (probably through a third party with policies against retaining PII) and each account was linked (but not necessarily publicly) to a real ID, would that help? For example, being banned from a platform would be permanent since the ban would be tied indirectly to your ID, meaning that consequences would be real for abuse.
  I feel like the core problem is that people can post without consequences. It's both a good thing and a bad thing ofc, but maybe the downsides are too big.
  Could also maybe be a more robust "verified" system I guess where all platforms verify identities of businesses/people through a common provider, and even a platform like Lemmy could show who is verified (which would require tying the identity to the account publicly). This would still allow for anonymous accounts, but those who are verified would be able to be held accountable to what they post online in exchange for higher credibility. I don't think the verification systems we've seen already really help that much though, considering how toxic twitter has been basically throughout its entire existence.
  
  We choose our levels of anonymity. You responded to Chris, who uses his full name as a handle, and I'm responding to you as literally the only person in the world with my name. ID verification is an unnecessarily onerous requirement that just adds more PII to the insatiable maws of tech firms.
  You can self-select being open about your identity, and that seems a good middle ground. Facebook has had a real-name requirement for quite some time, and it didn't exactly settle into civil discourse as a result of that policy change.
- Facebook has a "real name" policy. It doesn't work, some people create plausibly sounding fake accounts, while others get banned for not sounding plausible enough. Chinese social networks require official ID registration, they're still full of trolls, bullying, and fake accounts. The EU is working on an expanded Digital ID service suite... theoretically it could be done well, but based on past experiences, I remain somewhat skeptical.
  
  It wouldn't accept my real name as apparently I had an account. I had to use a fake one. It was perfectly happy.
  That was a couple of years ago though.
- Good on you for using your real name. Just as some criticize wikipedia for anonymitity, I wonder if a forum with real names would cause people to be more respectful.
  Your an admin here, can I ask which com is best for selfhosting?
  
  which com is best for selfhosting?
  Not sure what you mean. Would you, please, elaborate?
  
  I wonder if a forum with real names would cause people to be more respectful.
  Permies.com requires people to use their real name (at least something that sounds real) and there's very little toxicity there. Although how much that affects things I don't know, as the mods are very active, and quick to ban.
  
  Society tried that for a bit. It was called Facebook and most people just found ways to be jerks on there too!

Beyond reporting and blocking I'll usually take a break or depending on the amount of toxic people I may just leave the platform altogether.
If you find yourself surrounded by assholes it may best just to leave and find a new spot.
- Spaceballs: The Comment Thread
- Taking a break is a good idea but I came here from reddit because I enjoy selfhosting and believed in this alternative. I don't know where else I'd go. I enjoy the forum style community.
  
  The beauty of this kind of platform (Lemmy) is you can leave one instance that has affiliations you don't like and move to one that has affiliations you like.
  For example I have alts on other instances that aren't federated the same so particular instances I see as quite problematic I never see their comments or posts. It makes the whole thing more pleasant.
  There's also having multiple accounts that are focused on different things, like one that's focused on memes, one that's focused on news, one that's focused on hobby things, so that you can keep them all separated and isolated from each other. That way, if the account you have for news is going to be particularly in a knee-deep-of-dread situation (like political content) afterwards you can switch to your hobby account and not see that content until you're ready again.
  IMO it's good for your mental health as you can take breaks from the dread.