The human race has been blessed with a certain number of
assholes.
Trolls,
dumbasses, troublemakers, idiots... call them what you will. They seem to concentrate in certain places...
Los Angeles freeways,
monster truck rallys, and sometimes the E2
Catbox. Generally, people note the abundance of idiots in such places and greatly overestimate their abundance. True, they are quite abundant. But they are more noticable when a large number of people converge.
Let's just say, for the sake of argument, that one in ten people is a troll. I know this is probably an understatement, but bear with me. Now, people tend to think that these assholes are more abundant in certain areas, like Los Angeles. But I don't think this is necessarily true. The thing is, there are a LOT of people in Los Angeles. a Lot. So if you were driving through Bishop, California on a hot summer day, you might very well see several assholes. The town has 3000 people or so living in it, so there are 300 assholes in the whole place. But it's hot.. and even lizards, rats, and assholes are smart enough to stay out of the heat in the desert. Then take LA. There are something like 30 million people living in the greater LA area. That leaves at least 3 million assholes. And they ALL like to troll their way down the 405 freeway at once and cuss at people and cut them off. So, you would believe that LA has a higher proportion of assholes than Bishop, even though this may not be true
Well, the same thing holds for E2. As the site expands, and more people come around, more trolls do too. But the trolls won't be happily noding. They won't be looking at the page of cool, voting dilligently away, or punching themselves. They will be in the chatterbox, raising hell. So, it seems like there are proportionately more assholes here as the place grows. But there arent.. I've met lots of cool new noders. The trolls are just more visible. And they love to make thousands of accounts too.. but that's another story.