I think it has more to do with culture — the way moderation occurs enforces a certain style of good and bad behavior, and once the community is trained correctl

I think it has more to do with culture — the way moderation occurs enforces a certain style of good and bad behavior, and once the community is trained correctly, it becomes self-enforcing. And people have a natural tendency to conform, and if they refuse to, quickly leave to find another group more relevant to them. The problem with most communities is that there is no culture being enforced — whatever grows, grows haphazardly and randomly. It’s also why good communities tend to start small and grow slowly — and why eternal September is so deadly. If you have too many people enter the system too quickly, that culture can’t be enforced and trained before the next group of people come in. Rather than having the “elders” teach their ways to the “young”, it becomes the young teaching the young. As an additional influence, those elders tend to leave and establish new communities, making it such that the problem can never be corrected.