"Fallible, the simple meaning of my little poem is that all dynamic social institutions eventually evolve into organizations crafted by effete insiders who prevent any further evolution of raison d'etre. Instead they direct the resourses of the organization towards the preservation and enhancement of themselves."

Well, I don't disagree the gist, but I do disagree with the use of the term 'effete'. Also that's not the whole picture. Any individual will tend to encourage movement in a direction he thinks is desirable. Groups of individuals will - over time - affect each other's thinking. The way I think of it is that the thinking of individuals can have 'momentum' and that the thinking of groups can channel that 'momentum.'

Sometimes those desires, while contrary to the existing spirit of the forum, are based on an earnest disagreement. Sometimes the motives are selfish and destructive. Sometimes things might be called destructive simply because people don't like change.

In many cases, change really IS destructive. Left fallow, unmoderated fora tend to become dominated by strident, argumentative individuals. There are many, many fora of this type in existence - USENET, blogs, BBS systems, etc. Some fora - such as this one - have at least slight protection simply because they appear arcane to the average person.

To outsiders, the fact that there are already established - and usually undocumented procedures and relationships in a new group - can give the impression that there is a unified cabal in control of things. Sometimes there IS, as in the case of certain IRC channels. Other times, it's just appearance.

Any time I come to a new forum, it takes some time to get to know the parties involved. This is what happens - sometimes you mention something and nobody's interested, or they'll discuss it for 30 seconds and it wanes. It's not a cabal. It's not a plot. It's not even a collective decision. It's a hundred individuals separately deciding that they're not interested in pursuing the topic. So I pick a new one. But I notice sometimes a person will come into the group - be largely ignored and immediately assume that everyone is a snob just because they're not interested in his pursuing his conversation at length.

He seems completely oblivious to the fact some gracious group-members at least made an attempt to welcome him by engaging however shortly in conversation they pretty clearly did not find all that interesting.

True Story:
I take my kids' dog out to the dog park at least once or twice a week. I see a lot of different interactions. A common thing to happens is for two happy-go-lucky dogs to suddenly go at it, because one of them simply misunderstood what the other was doing. Our JRT is particularly bad at this: she sniffs other dogs' behinds, but nobody's allowed to sniff hers. "Hey, whatcha doin back there? Cut dat out, ya bastard!"

That's kinda what the Internet is like - at least a little - a dog park. (don't follow that analogy too far. it's not meant to be perfect.)