Anytime. I feel HN over-represents the too-optimistic and always-assume-good-faith point of view and I believe that is harmful for having an objective and multi-dimensional discourse.

99% of all people are indeed not actively malicious by default but they can be so wrongly incentivized that the end result mimics malice very closely anyway.

Understand the problematic people's motivation if you can. It will help you devise a strategy. If not then maybe it's time for some good old top-bottom management with "you are here to obey orders, bucko".

Problem of wrong incentives is that they put same pressures on everybody. So if those aren't cleared next batch of devs, just didn't spoil yet :(

So looking at incentives first is good place to start. Those experienced devs can be great asset if they can feel they can change behavior now.