Comment by Aurornis

It's a pattern I see in a lot of communities now. Some of the open source projects I follow have had their communities collapse the same way: Some group comes in with all smiles and energy to help out, then they brings their friends into the upper ranks because they say they need more help, then they start pushing agendas and adding rules to give themselves more power, then finally they just exhaust everyone else who isn't interested in fighting the battles every time they log on to do something.

The few remaining forums I frequent have survived because they have no tolerance for admins who push their own agendas. They've all erred on the side of minimal rules and bans only in extreme cases. Every forum I've been on that went all-in on rules and heavy moderation has collapsed, or at least driven away the core users and left roaming packs of ingroup people who care more about picking apart everyone else than being part of the community. It's weird how many different places I've watched this happen online.