When you take up Facebook's offer to share 'what's on your mind', there's every chance you'll be shouted down, or have sarcastic antagonism slung your way. Online, the protective cloak of anonymity gives rise to some serious ugliness, and amidst it all, we risk losing our grip on the skill of good conversation.

Andrew Denton hosted Enough Rope on ABC TV and is considered one of this country's best interviewers. Surveying the online landscape, he felt this was a situation he could try to help improve.

"The world ... seems to have become very volatile in the way we converse with each other," he said.

"A lot of people are quick to fire up on social media.

"We've seen this sort of mob mentality; people hunted and silenced for their opinions or for their actions."

After a five-year break, the pursuit of better conversations has brought Denton back to television interviewing.

"I thought [it's] probably a good time to try and model a different kind of conversation, whereby we can sit and listen to people who we may not agree with or may not understand, but at least give them the credit that what they have to say might be worth listening to."

Be respectful

In the echo-chamber of social media, where algorithms ensure our news feeds mostly support what we already believe, it's more difficult to engage with different views -- even ones that are respectfully expressed.

Respect and sensitivity are two skills Denton demonstrates in abundance.

In his interview with Bill Clinton only a handful of years after his affair with Monica Lewinsky, Denton couldn't not bring up the scandal.

But he approached the much-covered topic cleverly, asking — after one response of Clinton's largely skirted around the issue — to pose a final question, "as a father":

"Talking to Hillary was hard but I can only imagine that talking to Chelsea was excruciating. Where do you start with a conversation like that?"

Denton's approach was persistent and respectful, and it garnered a long pause from the former leader of the free world, before a response that felt unscripted and genuine.

Even when the subject is a polished performer, Denton proves that strategies such as persistence can produce a good conversation.

"You chip away," he said. "You come at it from different ways. That's the nice thing about having time — you can loop back to things."

Use humour, empathy

Humour is a good way to establish a rapport with someone and make them feel relaxed.

"If somebody is laughing they are letting their defences down a bit, they are listening in a different way.

Denton, who says he is "an introvert trapped in an extrovert's career", also espouses the value of empathy in conversation.

Before his interview with Daniel Johns, Denton shared with the ex-Silverchair front man that the two had introversion in common.

"I sat with him before actually interviewing him, because he is a very anxious interviewee, and I said to him, 'Look Daniel, I wouldn't put myself in your category except in one way: both of us would much rather be home with the door closed.

"'So tonight we are going to be two introverts pretending to be extroverts in front of an audience'."

Another strategy that we can learn from Denton is one he makes good use of in his long-form interviews.