Giok, your presumption of heavy policing that other sites lacking the vapid vituperation and endless rancor seen at Mudcat must have is misplaced, I think. At least it is in my experience in online fora.

It is more the nature of the people who come here, I think. A certain type of personality and bad behavior that is rather obnoxious is rewarded here, and therein lies the problem.

This place is a magnet for malcontented troublemakers, and those who are easily entertained by them.

All forums go through bouts of bitchiness. All forums have personality clashes. But not all forums thrive on obnoxious behavior, bad boy one-upmanship of the sort we see here, that sort of thing.

In the two other forums I regularly participate in, only the personality conflicts that occassionally flare up are a problem. And even that only occassionally flares up, and the other forum members call the individuals on it so it gets taken to email and out of the forum almost immediately. Other than that, we just chug merrily along, both with our on and off topic banter, and get along really well.

So I long ago decided this place is what it is, because that is what the people who love the place and come here regularly want it to be.

It is the regular members of any forum that set the tone, control the ambiance, that sort of thing.