It's very different to me. Past forums I have been on were very topic-limited. MSFN has a much broader base and topics are like sinusoids. Lots of ups. Lots of downs. Active threads jump around quite a bit. You'll have one month were the "overactive" thread is all StartAllBack. The next month the "overactive" topic is a Roytam thread. The next month the "overactive" thread is XP antivirus. That's a very broad base and I have to put "filters" in place to HIDE (out of sight, out of mind) when uninteresting-to-me "overactive" topics make the topics that I am interested in seem like a needle in a haystack.
The drama and elitist attitude, I tie that to this being a "pensioner hangout", which I definitely see it as. Think of a teenager - they "know it all" but don't really know anything, doesn't prevent them from coming across as "know-it-alls". The "pensioner hangout", on the other hand, is at an age with "years of wisdom" but still the arrogance of not fading into the sunset and handing the reigns over to the next generation (whether they are prepared to take the reigns or not we kind of have to blame ourselves, we brought them up, afterall).
Or something like that...