My biggest concern with other communities I have joined for a while, both on Facebook and elsewhere, is that they are moderated by individuals who have no experience facilitating and are put into positions of moderation because they started said group, and basically it turns into the worst parts of high school. What I like the most about PC is that the overarching community guidelines have been created by a professional and said professional, DocJohn, oversees the administration of the community guidelines, albeit, yes, by community volunteers, but there is a review structure in place. Every other place I've been, to me, is actually quite unhealthy because it's not overseen by a professional who can gauge the community dynamic or they put in place moderators with no training or who are not stable, simply because they have a lot of time on their hands. Online "support" communities can become toxic really fast when they are basically run without expertise.

Even NAMI facilitators for their peer groups, who are peers, go through substantial training to lead the peer support sessions.

To me, the reason these forums are so successful is because of how they have been created and moderated. Peer support groups I've seen created and run by peers with no professional involved have always turned into super toxic environments.