The best defense I've had against cliques works, because many tried to form them on my site and there are none in effect. I was always willing to delete accounts and ban people if they engaged in unnecessary personal attacks and served as poison to the system. In addition, at the risk of losing friends and people, I always went out of my way to treat everyone the same - no favoritism. I have one or two that try to use their popularity against me, but when they saw that I temporarily banned even THAT person, it nipped it in the bud.
Personally, I would rather build slower and with better people than sacrifice principles and standards so that I can have more warm bodies. I didn't even care about monetizing or ads the first year and a half. I am sure I missed out on body count and money, but I am long-term.
Now, that's me. Some sites want to have that sort of action or drama, and my method doesn't apply. I am just saying what works for me - tough love, all the way, every day. It lets me focus on delivering exciting features and a quality environment instead of the other stuff a lot more.
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