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Peter_Twieg comments on Well-Kept Gardens Die By Pacifism - Less Wrong
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If you're trying to quote Gurren-Lagann here, I believe you botched the quote. "Believe in me who believes in you!" But maybe it was dubbed differently. In any case, I do find some amusement in your approvingly quoting a show which was more or less premised on a rejection of rationality. "Throw away your logic and kick reason to the curb!" I'll have to remember that for the next anti-rationalism quotes thread.
But anyways, I did like this post, although as you implicitly concede it's just one narrative of community development among many. I'm sure that there have been as many communities to have fallen due to despotic moderation or impoverished by rigid ideological guidelines as there have been ruined in the ways described in the OP. Oftentimes the "idiots" who "ruin" the comm are actually the lonely voices of reason. It's a fine line to walk, and I look forward to someday seeing a modern-day Machiavelli write a tract on "The Internet Community Moderator". Because it really is that tricky.
Could you give an example where you've seen this? In 20 years online I've seen it once, maybe.
I can't think of a specific example that a broad audience might know about, but it's relatively easy to see how this could arise. Take a community of "idiots", by whatever criteria we'd use to apply the term to the lone troll. Many of them exist which espouse all sorts of nonsense. Throw in someone who actually understands the topics which these people purport to discuss. Unless that person is incredibly subtle and eloquent, they will be denounced as an idiot in any number of ways.
I can speak here from my own experience as an economist who's tried to make arguments about public choice and decentralized knowledge to a general (online) audience in order to defend free markets. A lot of crowds really will have none of it. I think this is a frustration which even the best libertarian-leaning individuals have run into. But given persistence, one can gain ground... and subsequently be accused of "ruining" a safe space which was reserved for the narrow worldview which you challenged. In face, any community with "safe space" disclaimers is probably extremely vulnerable to this - I just doubt you've engaged with many.
OK, yes, that's a counterexample. However, in all those instances, the community itself is screwed in a fundamental way, and the fix is not for people to welcome the "idiots": the fix is to leave the community and go somewhere more sensible. Is there an example of a community good enough that you would recommend anyone to join, but which would have been improved by taking the criticism of unpopular members more seriously? It doesn't have to be a well-known example, and you don't have to link to it; even anecdotal evidence would be enlightening here.
Damaging such a broken community might be a good thing, much as tearing down a dangerously decrepit building can be better than letting squatters stay in it until it collapses on them.
(I think that analogy as gone about as far as it should go)