Part of the things that you mentioned in your experience, "us v them" ideology, reverse burden of proof are all a defining characteristic of any forum that thri

Part of the things that you mentioned in your experience, "us v them" ideology, reverse burden of proof are all a defining characteristic of any forum that thrives. And, arguably, its not a bug it's a feature. Typically, a forum has a lot of registered users, but very few who are active daily. (Reddit reported 52M MAU in Oct 2020, an increase by 44% post pandemic. Their MAUs in Dec 19 were 430M. So, about 7-10% users are very active, others are lurkers). The most frequent users (power users) gain kind of an influence which is suited to their experience the most (not talking about HN per se, not as frequent here) and they come to define the rules of the forum. It's not specific to mastodon, and forum moderators allow it because they are the users (and many a times mods themselves) and it does not really break a rule. The us v them mentality in particular is key for the forums since it invokes an emotional response in using that forum. Many lurkers stick to the forum if they cant find a better alternate to stay in touch with the topic, and they leave when they do. The other problems you highlighted may not be a platform problem but a human problem which will happen on almost every other platform. I don't think there is a solution to this except finding other smart people who are more self aware, though that is easier said than done.