This was brought up in a post below, but the first sentence is hard to decipher. I think "patiently allowed" here implies that they kindly answered his questions even though he was touching the third rail.
In other words he was afraid of being hated on for opening the dialogue, but the people on the Slack channel were fully willing to engage.
In other words he was afraid of being hated on for opening the dialogue, but the people on the Slack channel were fully willing to engage.