QUOTE(LessHorrid vanU @ Fri 8th January 2010, 5:04pm)
Serious point; I think the main problem with a lot of the younger editors is that they are not used to internet sites where things can get nasty. All these newer sites like MySpace, FaceBook and Wikipedia Review have this friendly culture - even 4chan seems to be friendly enough within its membership, even if they are targeting other sites they are doing it from a support orientated network. Some older editors come from the more "Wild West" days of the hindernets - from places where the infighting was part of the "game", and flamewars was just another way of passing the time.
Interesting observation, but the one thing I would have to point out is that with MySpace and Facebook, you don't really have any sort of gamesmanship based on the goal of achieving admin status. (You might get a little of that on WR I suppose, but not much.) On Usenet, there was quite a bit of that, and these days you see it on Freenode IRC channels and such. Three guesses as to which of these tend to be associated more with Wikipedia...
In general though, not all kids are psychologically rooted in self-esteem-generation delusionalism, but it does seem that a lot of kids these days wish that life can be as simple as fish swimming round in a barrel, when they've got the gun.