I'd suggest it is part of the natural evolution of discussion boards. Some go there more quickly than others. When people act badly, and get away with it (witho

I'd suggest it is part of the natural evolution of discussion boards. Some go there more quickly than others. When people act badly, and get away with it (without having the post quickly hidden, all the way to them getting banned), the people who don't act that way start participating less. So it can be a downward spiral. I do wish boards would use some more smarts to help manage the prominence of posts. Way back in the day Slashdot did this pretty well with being able to rate things as insightful, troll, etc, but they never imporoved their algorithm much after the initial design (and it sucked that only certain people could moderate at any given time). They also had meta-moderation. A lot of promising things. But Slashdot became horrible after a few years.