There's nothing particularly animalish about this board. They're often closing threads on the 12-step board too, when the disputes about who's a Real Alcoholic or whatever get a bit ratty.
I do think the lack of traffic means that sometimes people parachute in and start shooting their mouths off a bit - there's less sense of an ongoing conversation.
But I quite like the fiery threads and they're often full of interesting and helpful writing - I enjoyed Sunyata's (?) stuff on the thread that got closed, even though s/he was a bit grouchy about AA.