Second post, rant is too long
As for the bandwagoning, it is a problem, but that's kind of what the entire net mentality is nowadays. It takes minimal thinking and effort to say "Yeah I agree with him because he's winning", it's an easy potshot at getting on someone's good side, and usually that never occurs. It's difficult to shoot these people down but eventually it will have to start happening, by both the person putting the other guy under question and the questioned guy himself. You gotta stay the forget out of the situation if you don't have enough of a brain to formalize your own opinion, it actually impedes the purpose of drama threads.
Reminder, drama threads about a person can do two things:
1- They can help a person realize he's been loving up and it won't fly unless he changes a few behaviors on the net, it's a good thing overall. It's harsh but when it works, it works very well.
2- It can do the alternative, force someone to give up and leave.
The intent of most drama threads is to bring up the small issues someone might have. It works when you get to the bottom of things to try to get the person to realize exactly what everyone's yelling about. It doesn't work when you have these starfishs coming in and doing absolutely nothing except pouring fuel on a fire, then people with actual informed opinions need to stand the forget back. Some people come here to vent their issues with someone else, that's a good thing. Some people come here just to get on someone's popularity list, that's a bad thing and these people should be shot for not having any sort of opinion on anything, so they shouldn't have a say in the matter either.
If you have to agree with a valid point, add on to it or something, anything but just "This" or "I agree". It's a useless waste of space and no one cares (neither the poster or the person under questioning) unless you can actually build on top of it. And if you disagree, then go for it and put up all your points. if anyone flames you for disagreeing both the original poster and the disagreeing poster should give that starfish some flak.
Oh yeah, and of course there are the Thread Backfires which occur, but if you defend your point half right and no one has any beef with you to begin with it usually doesn't occur.