Ironically enough there's a post that describes exactly what happened to the INTP site
It seems that this was very influential, but I would say that the thinking behind this is dubious. It can create cohesion perhaps up to a certain point, but eventually it can lead to the breakdown of community. If you either drive out or eliminate scapegoats, this means that you keep on having to find new scapegoats. This means that you not only lose the scapegoats as you go away, but, if membership in a community is purely voluntary, you also drive people away because it creates an environment full of mistrust people will not want to be in.
You are correct.
I just dropped in to see what condition my condition was in. Heh. I wonder who's in charge of this place nowadays. People change their names constantly and so it could be some members that I actually remember, but wouldn't know it from their name.
I stuck around INTP Central ( nearly 10,000 posts ) for various reasons, but one of the biggest was because I thought that someday ( analogy - the end of a play where one sees the actors taking their bows ) I would be told ( most likely privately but maybe publicly ) who was behind all of the sock puppets that I intuited were there. It was kinda like being IN a soap opera and not just WATCHING one. But.....nope. Supposedly Ptah knew most or all of the truth behind the shenanigans, once starting the successor site / forum anyway, but he never wanted to confide in me about it, even when I met him a few times in person at Meet-Ups. ( Too bad he's not still in a nearby suburb to where I'm at. ) His reasoning seemed to be that such secrets divulged would lead to quarrels and disorder etc.
There was always a delicate balance between moderators / admins pushing for more "order" / less quarrels on the original INTP Central and the other pole of the spectrum representing that diisagreements and so-called 'drama" was keeping the site interesting and "sticky" in a way besides that of strict academic pursuits. I remember Mack Stan remarking that there was an art to goading a member but still staying within the boundaries of the "rules" re: insults etc. ; rules that members like Edmund Zedo found so objectionable.
After awhile it sometimes seemed to me like the forum was very much a huge experiment to see how different types handled "problems", and whether they were properly "diagnosed" as genuine INTP's etc. A woman member of the forum had my telephone number and would call me often. She was tearfully ( so it sounded on the phone anyway ) telling me about office politics that she had to deal with IRL one afternoon and I calmly told her that one option was to pretend to agree with some of the clique leaders at her office vs. me simply saying something comforting but empty like "There, there...I understand. Wish I could giive you a big hug, hon' " etc. Her voice instantly sobered up at my "cold" practical option and she said "Yeah, you're no Feeler." ( Something I'd been "accused" of )
I felt like some members were taking positions with one sock puppet just to see whether cogent arguments could be made against that philosophical position, and then taking opposing stances with sock puppets representing other POV. I tried to point this out and was ridiculed as being "paranoid" by members who had ( often privately but some publicly ) acted as friends to me before. Top Admin ( with the Darth Vader avatar ) McGuffin even stated once that he noticed sock puppets having arguments with themselves, and this was on an occasion where we Moderators and Admins were debating whether there should be rules against doing so.. I can't recall the decision, rule-wise, but it seemed to be generally discouraged as long as the person was not one of the behind-the-scenes gurus...
Reminds me of Harry Houdini's strategy of demeaning himself as a trickster or fraud in newspaper "letters to the editor" submissiions before a big "challenge" event so as to stir up controversy and thus also stir up paid attendance at same. Likely Barnum adopted this practice also..
Why did I choose to rain on this "parade" then ? Well, I was new to cyber-debates and "flaming" of the sort seen with folks much younger than me in places like 4Chan . I'm 67 now. It pissed me off that I thought I'd been "cat-fished" a bit on there, too, when I learned what the practice was. Why not simply confide to me what the hidden purposes were, since I'd been invited to be a Moderator, after all. BTW - I told them I didn't want to have to spend tons of time moderating quarrels either, and was assured that not much time needed to be devoted to such - HAH. Nothing could be further from the truth.