First off, I agree with the first post. Second, I've mentioned it before, but forum culture - any culture - evolves in response to the environment it finds itself in. If cliquyness or how you'd spell it is rewarded, then the community gets more cliquey people. If productivity is rewarded, you get more productive people. By rewarded, I basically mean how much response it generates - how much attention it gets. Let's say you have some drama in one thread and a very productive album review in another. Today, the drama generates more interest, more responses, spends more time towards the top of the new posts page - it basically outcompetes the productive thread for attention. Today, drama is more culturally relevant.
So I think the MB environment today rewards the wrong things. The environment is basically made up by regular members, moderators and the technicalities of the site. Moderators do have the power to make drama less rewarding, but it is a difficult thing to do and very unpopular. It is seen as better to promote the sort of behaviour we do want, but how much do you have to promote it in order for it to outcompete all the drama here? What happens when you stop promoting good behaviour for a while? The technicalities of this site do not help promote productivity so it has to be a constant social effort, which is hard. The best strategy here, I think, would be to strike down on drama (ban those who generate and promote it) and reward whatever behaviour it is you want.
Controlling the environment so that it fosters the things we want would be a lot easier if we had control of the site itself which is part why I've once again brought up the suggestion of setting up a new forum for our community.
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