That’s valid, both in the criticism of the behavior and of drama comms more generally. I’d argue that the catharsis is a large part of the motivation here though, with a secondary effect of having an easier tool to refute recurring rumors from dedicated trolls which can, nonetheless, become ‘common knowledge’ - and who the fuck wants to write out a screed every time to contest it when they see it just so they don’t get, by repetition and convincingly phrased lies, a reputation as a dog-fucker or something like that? Better to do it once and have it to easily refer to.

As someone who is deeply combative, and, for that matter, abrasive enough that I’ve made a few people hate my guts to the point of throwing shit at the wall to see what sticks, I’ve waded into enough comment sections to dispute being called utter bullshit to find it tedious. I find the idea of a centralized comm mandating verification for disproving claims to be a somewhat comforting idea in comparison to games of drama whack-a-mole between conflicting personalities. That the comm mandates ‘receipts’ and specific, rather than general, claims also reduces the bullshit quotient that drives ugliness in many drama comms. It’s not here to tell a story, but to point out that a specific claim is provably false and bad faith.

I would also argue that with the Fediverse still being as small as it is, unlike in something the size of, say, Reddit, there’s a much greater element similar to old-style forums in that personalities are, for both better and worse, capable of becoming well-known fixtures either by their own behavior (even when they have nothing particularly exceptional to offer except participation in the community) or by games of internet telephone. A lack of drama communities, in this case, would not mean a lack of drama, but a lack of verification - unlike in larger milieus, like Reddit, where drama communities are the primary vehicle for reputations, good and bad, in smaller milieus, drama communities are more repositories for the accumulation of extant and active drama.

But again, I also don’t entirely disagree with your criticisms. As I said, I find the routine tedious - that this is meant to minimize the whole song-and-dance is appealing to me, but the objectively less-tedious (if not necessarily less gossip-suppressing) option would be to simply not-engage. Many of us, however, find not-engaging to be as irritating or more irritating than engaging - which while a personal flaw, is also not exactly something that can be waved away. And drama communities can absolutely (and are uniquely inclined to) devolve into very ugly things by the nature of everyone playing “gawk and take sides”, especially if a circlejerk mentality begins to emerge in them. I suppose all I can say there is that if things get bad and I’m cognizant of the fact, I’m not averse to axing the comm myself.