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@Oliver Schick
Ah, so this thread is why people have started calling each other arseholes in other threads. And there I was thinking it might be for no reason.
I find that 'no arsehole' theory interesting, but I'm not sure the same question arises concerning the forum as it does concerning companies. There are obviously similarities between the perceived problems, but I think that they're different and require different solutions.
However, I think, firstly, that people actually don't seem to agree on what the problem(s) is/are, and, secondly, that we'd have to be clearer on what it is that we want to change to find a solution. Thirdly, I can imagine that any solution would involve heavier moderation, as has been said by others, and while I don't think that that is necessarily a bad thing, it can involve a risk of throwing the baby out with the bathwater, i.e. is part of what makes the forum fun the lack of moderation, and while that does involve excesses, is it necessary to run the risk of those in order not to endanger what makes it fun?
A company/corporate environment is only aimed at keeping workers motivated to be most efficient, but a lot of people use the forum precisely to get a bit of distraction from work.
That's all very theoretical and I don't have particularly good ideas as to how things could be improved other than boring ones like outlawing sexism and the like. I've always liked the fact that the forum is largely self-policing, but of course it's not likely that that can continue forever.
Maybe have a mechanism whereby people can 'arsehole' particular posts, which then either get hidden (after a certain threshold) like ignored posts and it only says 'x users found this post objectionable' and you can still click it open if you want, possibly just to add your own disapproval, with massively objected-to posts getting reported for moderator action, or being automatically hidden inaccessibly--so it's every troll's own choice whether they want people to be able to read their posts, and they could be certain in the knowledge, if people actually took this action, that they wouldn't last long enough to upset enough people to satisfy the troll.
If this wasn't personal like the rep system (people could obviously still neg rep the poster, as well, if they so wished), I doubt that it would descend into rep war-style wars, and it would still give moderators a tool to decide whose posts were consistently unpopular.
I think it wouldn't be such a good idea to kick particular people out too quickly other than for the usual well-established reasons (Nursery, Classified rules, etc.). This sort of system would give them a chance to improve.
It might be too much to programme, but perhaps suitable routines from existing mechanisms could be adapted for making the new moderation tools. Just an idea.