Does it seem like the retail community has improved at least even a little bit ever since Classic WoW was introduced? It feels like all of the most awful, toxic people left retail to go play Classic and it’s made the game and community better as a result.
There’s awful, toxic people everywhere. But it really depends on how you define awful and toxic. Some might call it ‘passionate’
No they’re still here somewhat especially on here
Wanna know why I think so? Cause some of the locals here decided "hey you know what, our friend Anidarin, we should just hurt him down to his soul by ignoring him and make him feel so AWESOME that his friends don’t give a flying fel!
It’s not like he have any feelings or anything, leaving him ghosted/read is what friends do!
Maybe he’ll go away and remove us cause he’s hurting so bad, no wait! He don’t have feelings so who cares 
"
I’d say you might be conflating 2 different things. I suspect the reason why you are perceiving their to be less toxicity is because the player population has dropped on retail quite significantly. I suppose that could in part be due to people jumping ship to classic. But I suspect it’s more likely to be because people just stopped playing wow.
Probably equal parts all those 11+ million players weren’t kidding when they said they were quitting… only to be greeted with forum goblins screeching “see you next week, nobody ever leaves!”
Blizz bit the hand that feeds 3 times in a row now all the dissatisfied customers arent even curious enough to check out the game on new expansions. That “rock stars of gaming” mentality really put this whole thing in the ground.
TLDR: “Less players = Less complaints”
Probably, but the Classic community in comparison to retail is infinitely more awful and toxic which led me to believe at least some of the toxic people in retail left and went to Classic instead.
It indirectly makes things more positive when all the people who hated retail get what they want and go away. I won’t begrudge people for wanting something different, but it always fills game forums with angry, bitter doom posting and such.
Probably Blizzard’s social contract more than anything, you can’t really say anything offensive without getting a week or two ban.
I mean, I really haven’t noticed a whole lot of difference.
Some of the most toxic players in Classic also play retail. These types talk about themselves constantly.
I find more toxic people in Retail than Classic.