(disclaimer: this post is cynical and by a poster who is currently not participating in MSE)

Inertia.

The way the internet works, the all-inclusive viewpoint never had to convince anyone that it was a good idea, or even to get anything near a majority of opinionated people behind it -- all it had to do is to obstruct attempts at pruning MSE until the people who care got exhausted and give up trying to make MSE better or quit entirely.

And boy they did they do a good job of being obstructive. They even managed a successful PR campaign to convince the groupmind that "undecided" is synonymous with "all-inclusive", thus paralyzing the people who care into inaction until a mythical unanimity occurred, which of course can never happen without the consent of anyone promoting the all-inclusive viewpoint.

And the way the stackexchange network is set up, the people who are willing participants in the activities that would otherwise have been pruned away gain reputation, which is a proxy for authority, which means the help vampire problem is even more insidious than in the typical internet community.

I am a once prolific contributor that has quit MSE due to my belief that the situation has become hopeless, and I am not the only one who has done so. While there is certainly a lot more pruning going on today than there once was, the problem is just too big.

The triage queue mentioned in the other answer is very intriguing, though. Moderating what can even be posted to MSE (rather than after the fact) is a drastic enough of a change that it might be able to do something. I really hope it is both effective, and not rendered useless to rubber stamp approvals.

(Disclaimer: this post is cynical and by a poster who is currently not participating in MSE.)

Inertia.

The way the internet works, the all-inclusive viewpoint never had to convince anyone that it was a good idea, or even to get anything near a majority of opinionated people behind it -- all it had to do was to obstruct attempts at pruning MSE until the people who cared got exhausted and gave up trying to make MSE better or quit entirely.

And boy, did they do a good job of being obstructive. They even managed a successful PR campaign to convince the groupmind that "undecided" is synonymous with "all-inclusive", thus paralyzing the people who cared into inaction until a mythical unanimity occurred, which of course can never happen without the consent of everyone promoting the all-inclusive viewpoint.

And the way the stackexchange network is set up, the people who are willing participants in the activities that would otherwise have been pruned away gain reputation, which is a proxy for authority, which means the help vampire problem is even more insidious than in the typical internet community.

I am a once prolific contributor that has quit MSE due to my belief that the situation has become hopeless, and I am not the only one who has done so. While there is certainly a lot more pruning going on today than there once was, the problem is just too big.

The triage queue mentioned in the other answer is very intriguing, though. Moderating what can even be posted to MSE (rather than after the fact) is a change which is drastic enough to be susceptible to actually achieve something. I really hope it is both effective, and not rendered useless to rubber stamp approvals.