That's part of the reason why I am on Hubski now. I am looking for a decent alternative. Unfortunately a lot of places don't seem to have the user base or activity levels. Voat gets mentioned a lot, but the content is really hit or miss, plus it seems to get a lot of the worse from Reddit. So far Hubski looks great.
Definitely not a reddit replacement. For starters, everyone here seems to be welcoming and well spoken so far.
I'm also a reddit refugee, and basically never comment there anymore. I use it as a content aggregatior, but to actually carry on a conversation? Hubski all the way.
I wouldn't call myself a Reddit refugee, as I never felt myself driven from the place by any scandal and I've actually been on all sorts of websites, some still alive and some dead, for years. That said, when I discovered Hubski and lurked for a while before registering, I knew I found something special here. There's s degree of courtesy on this website that you don't often find elsewhere on the internet. In fact, my first month or so on here was a bit of an adjustment period for me, as I had to let myself acclimate to the fact that people on here aren't being deliberately contentious like so many other places on the internet. Suffice to say, this place is great.
I totally agree with your descriptions of Hubski (see?). I do consider myself driven from Reddit to an extent, due to a combination of the contention that you talk about and also the fact that it seems to be about who can be edgier the fastest.
Yes one of things that I like about Hubski is that it's probably one of the few places on the Internet where most of the conversations don't devolve into a flame fest. Sure nothing is perfect but you can really learn something from the articles and conversations posted here and that is important. When people get into discussions on other sites, they just fight and never learn anything from one another. People are so passionate about their beliefs on a place like Facebook or Twitter but they never take the time to learn. A lack of an open mind is very common these days on both sides. I feel like most people go around in the same circles never learning. I have a tendency to lurk on here but I do enjoy the fact that people can have civil conversations on here because that's such a rarity these days.