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Back in 2002, I was a member of two large webmaster forums, one of which we have since overtaken in size.

During the course of my postings on those forums, I noticed several things that I felt were wrong their administration. One of those things was over-moderation.

For example, when a member noticed that Google had dropped the home page of site X in a Google search for site X, and instead returned some obscure page from site X for that search, the member posted the name of the site.

Moderators immediately deleted the name of the site, and replaced it with a vague accusation of spamming. I had to send a private message to the member to ask which site he was referring to in order to investigate the matter. And that's how things still progress on that site.**

I felt that this kind of moderation - the prohibition against mentioning any site or website URL, no matter how much that impedes the discussion - was uncalled for. I also felt that that way of operating a forum was admin-central. Forums are about the members, not the administrators.

Another thing I noticed on both webmaster forums I frequented was a lack of humanity. I use the word humanity for lack of a better word. The word that I would prefer to use would imply humanity, compassion, understanding and a sense of community. It was as if a group of people, not wanting to know each other, nor caring one iota about each other, sat on the forum and replied to posts made for no other reason than to show one another up.

Both forums shared this heartlessness, and it was something I felt I didn't want to invest my time in.