This is the same as reddit. As social platforms get larger they starts diverging from their original userbase (programmers/geeks for reddit, college students for facebook) to apply to a wider and wider audience. Eventually the wider audience starts to look a whole lot like the demographics of a whole country (or maybe the world), and it becomes a platform with as many arguments as society in general.
The solution to not becoming a battleground which is inherantly destabilizing to the platform is to not grow, or only grow in a single direction. State up front what your targeted user base is and keep to them. NeoGAF as a "gamers only" forum will survive a very long time, for instance.
Facebook has sidestepped it by becoming a personal community for each user, but whenever they try to connect that personal community to the wider world through "shared" news, "shared" trends etc that are not personalized it causes a big ruckus.
The solution to not becoming a battleground which is inherantly destabilizing to the platform is to not grow, or only grow in a single direction. State up front what your targeted user base is and keep to them. NeoGAF as a "gamers only" forum will survive a very long time, for instance.
Facebook has sidestepped it by becoming a personal community for each user, but whenever they try to connect that personal community to the wider world through "shared" news, "shared" trends etc that are not personalized it causes a big ruckus.