I have noticed that discussions on Steemit are generally more friendly and respectable than on reddit or most anywhere else on the internet. This is perhaps related to the fact that we benefit from having other Steemians like us. The rest of the internet has almost no incentive for people to be nice and many of the normal disincentives to rude behavior in real life are missing.
There is some rancor on the politics topic, but even there, it's not nearly as bad as a typical internet political discussion.