As someone who got on the wrong side of dang, he's a model of light handed moderation.

And because he's so reasonable, I feel like I owe it to him personally to stay away from the fanning flamewars behaviour he flagged.

I've had the same experience, and his advice has improved my writing.

The main thing he advised me: You don't have to "bash" the opposing viewpoint in order to write your own. Just write your own.

There are a few things I disagree with him about, but as he's the mod, and I'm not, I accept it and try to avoid those topics.

"he's the mod and I'm not" certainly brings a lot of civility to a space. Most speculation of "why are people assholes on the internet" tends to center around anonymity, or not seeing each other face to face, but I think the toxicity can also be explained as "who's going to stop me", like 8 year olds seeing what they can get away with. Anywhere comments are simply reported to a faceless beauracracy is rife for abuse.