I'll agree that most online communities seem to follow this pattern, but I'm not sure it's inevitable. There are at least a few community sites that (IMHO) hav

I'll agree that most online communities seem to follow this pattern, but I'm not sure it's inevitable. There are at least a few community sites that (IMHO) have managed to maintain a high level of intelligent, polite discourse. MetaFilter comes to mind as an example as well as, so far at least, HN. Anyone else have other examples?