My first meta post! Ive lurked a long while over several versions of EN World. Compared to alot of places on the web, ENWorld still friendly and relatively self policing. The community still calls out inpolite people.
To the point, it seems like alot of the conflict happens when ever the new "Big" thing in rpgs is released. It seems Eberron was the latest big thing, and it has been kinda polarizing; arguments have broken out over everything from npcs to demographics.
The release of 3.5 seemed to have a similar effect if I recall.
Dunno. I think and hope the boards still allow for discourse about rpgs, whether they are d20 or not. Heck, dragonfoot.org had to close down its d20 and system war boards becasue it got too heated. I don't things are that bad here.