Per HerHusband:
I can relate. After years of reading usenet groups, all that seems to be
left are political and religious arguments and name calling.
....
It's sad, usenet was a convenient way to discuss a variety of topics
without having to visit individual web forums. It takes too much time and
hassle to visit and log in to each forum

Give Quora.com a try.

- It includes a broad range of categories that the user
can select on for their feed: one-stop shopping

- The loony/ad-hominem stuff seems to be pretty well
held in check by it's Upvote/Downvote functionality
and a couple of mechanisms for identifying the crazies
to moderators.
--
Pete Cresswell