In every forum, online or off, there will be two distinct minorities among the much greater population. One minority group is made up of the people who do whatever they can to make the group work smoothly. They end up being the volunteers, moderators, or even just plain nice people. They try to keep everyone else from shoving pointy sticks into each other.
Then there is the other minority group, serving the opposite function. They are the contentious ones. They want things to be the way they want things to be, as it will be better then. They have many more strong opinions (although not necessarily stronger opinions) than the other minority.
The volunteering group will do whatever they can to help the group, and they don't consider it a huge burden to watch their tongues or think about their actions. They tend to be quiet as much as possible, allowing the group to move as it wishes, but they also tend to hold the line when it comes to something that they can easily see will not be good for the group (and they can see much better, as they actively consider everyone, even if it means doing something they don't particularly like).
The contentious group are louder. If they believe the group has wronged them, they'll make no bones about saying so. It's not that they don't care about anyone. They may care about the group quite a lot, but they do not give as much weight to the good of the many as they do to themselves. All but the most cynical of them honestly believe that the group would be better if their ideas were followed, but they are sometimes blind to anything that shows that may not be the case. If you try to point out to them something that shows they are wrong, they may become agitated and even upset, as it is apparent in their minds that you have ulterior motives -- if you didn't, you'd see that their way would be better for everyone.
The two minorities are only minorities, of course. The majority are neither inspired to volunteer nor predisposed to offense. If the group is comfortable, they stay and become part. If the group is unpleasant, they go away to find some other group to sample. If the group is dominated by the contentious minority, it will be unpleasant. Nobody but the complainer enjoys a complaint, after all. If the group has no contentious minority, it will suffer from self-delusion and become too closely modeled on the volunteer minority. When that happens, it becomes a clique and those not in the volunteer minority will feel uncomfortably out of place.
Much of this thread seems primarily populated with the contentious minority. From near the beginning it became argumentative (both in itself and with the perceived status quo). Little was devoted to trying to work together, with the effort going instead to bashing people, posters, anonymous contributors, various moralities, and so on. The volunteering minority must find this thread practically repulsive, and so, their voices will be disproportionately missing. (On the other hand, the contentious minority may really enjoy the swordplay.)
People used to be much better at restraining themselves for the good of others. That seems to be a worthless pursuit in the opinions of some. Do not for a minute believe that their opinion is held by everyone on the board. If it were, this would long ago have devolved into chaos. Still, the moment you find everyone agreeing is the moment you know your days are numbered.
People kept posting after I wrote this, so to some of that, let me say that I don't see any need to police opt-in areas that are designated for threads I may not personally like. If having unrestrained forums means that the poorly-restrained posters will accept moderation in the main forums, it may serve a useful purpose... like the lymph system or something.
