you're right, of course, kate....

perhaps it might help some of the mods, admins, and members to read up on knowledge management and find out what it is that makes a community work. #1 principle: shared interests; #2 (but equal) principle: bottom-up contribution.... communities of interest and practice self-select their leaders and rules. top-down destroys them. finally, all communities have life-cycles - starting, growing, declining, and disappearing on their own. the good news is that new communities spring up just as quickly. (nonaka, steward, prusak, denning, and snowden are pretty fair blokes with some good ideas in this area.)

it used to be a hallmark of this site - the spontaneous generation of communities and their freedom. i've been an admirer going on for a couple of years. i've gone so far as to use this site and its members as examples of virtual communities in presentations to my clients.

not anymore, though.... in need of control and in fear of "chaos," more top-down interventions have been applied. and that's an often-predictable shame. moreover, it probably is harmful to the commerical interests of the site....