This sounds like an awesome sociology experiment! Sort of simulated territories, with strongly-typed cultures holding onto them!
You are catching on quick. The stoners are younger than the RT crowd, and seems to view them as unwanted refugees. The second thread in EA's new forum was a user-generated poll in which the stoners voted 20-14 to get rid of her forum. The third thread had the title, "this forum fucking sucks". I have no idea what else Skip expected to happen with this.
All of HF is sort of a twisted sociology experiment gone astray. Some of these people have invested many hours per day in HF for 8 to 10 years, so they feel like they have earned considerable respect for their investment. The site owner hates that kind of thinking. I'm watching all this unfold like an uprising in a communist or Islamic country. The common people are passionate, but their movement is destined to be crushed by the government. You know how it's all going to end.
Another problem with having so many long-term members is that too many people have totally exhausted their patience with each other. The infighting is unbelievable at times. As a relative n00b, only there since February, the internal dynamics still shock and surprise me at times with the extreme levels of animosity between people who have never met.
Hey! Does Hip Forums have a ghetto?
It has plenty of bad neighborhoods. RT (Random Thoughts) was the biggest and the worst. Now it's been bulldozed, and the riff-raff (along with some good people) are roaming the streets of the better parts of town. It's a mess.
A highly addictive, shitty, low-class soap opera. Gotta love it.