I think the measure for fine-tuning as an ongoing process was to let the communities grow and maintain themselves organically based on the knowledge and experie

I think the measure for fine-tuning as an ongoing process was to let the communities grow and maintain themselves organically based on the knowledge and experience of power-users, but what happened is that instead of letting the wisdom cascade for generations they ended up with opinionated, gatekeeping cliques. So not quite an idyllic ancient fantasy realm of unlimited knowledge, but instead thunderdome status on most SEs