It's so weird to read this, because other than a dork messaging me saying they were going to report me to the FBI I've had nothing but a lovely time on Lemmy.
Its very easy to promote yourself with bots or alt accounts if you know how or just are kind of person who would do that kind of thing even if it takes time.
I just don’t respond to hostile comments on Reddit or here. It makes life much easier. It saves me time too - if my comment is 2 sentences and someone replies to me with 2 very lengthy paragraphs, I just pass.
a paragraph response is just a rant. you have to spend a huge amount of time just thinking about it, and stressing out over it, thats how these people think.
i just report sometimes, to block them. on reddit, depends on the sub it can backfire if you report and the mod doesnt like it, or they set a filter of how many reports a "user can do before they get banned"