I'm on other forums but this is by far the best-natured - in the big scheme of things - and best-informed.
Sorry for snipping the rest of your post, but I agree with most of what you put and thank you.
What you have said above pretty much sums it up though. There are VERY few problems on here, especially when you consider the size of the forum, I would challenge anyone to point to another forum (doesn't have to be a racing forum) with a similar member base (not just in numbers but in regard to being passionate about one subject and as many regular posters), with less problems than we get on here. Similary there are very few specialist forums that have grown in size and popularity over the past 10 years due to the advent of facebook and twitter.
Ultimately though, if everyone agreed with each other the forum wouldn't be here as there would be no discussion. All you would have would be one person saying xxx will win the gold cup, and 100 posts saying yes I agree. When it gets to that point we can go on facebook and just click the like button to save typing anything at all. People have different ways of disagreeing and some can argue a point better than others. No different in the real world, you could be in a bookies and have an hour long discussion with someone about the gold cup, or he could be a total dick and punch you in the face after 30 seconds for saying something he didn't agree with. Not everyone gets on in real life or the internet, the difference is, on a forum people tend to be braver, or, certainly in some cases, something typed can be taken the wrong way. Thats life, but just let it go over your head or ignore it rather than be offended by something a stranger has written.
We do have facebook integration on here, which i had hoped people would use, especially those with a lot of friends into racing, in a bid to attract more members, but it rarely seems to get used.
Hopefully this is over and done with now, but ffs use the report button if you don't like something - that doesn't mean the post will be deleted as it will depend on what it was, if it broke rules etc, but enough reports about teh same post or member and things will be looked at further.
Presumably EC1 will post again as the member who upset him has been banned, unless my posts last night annoyed him to, they weren't meant to but I have to say it how I see it. Every member is valued on here and I think thats reflected in the ban list, which in almost 15 years has less than 30 names on it (which about 10 are all one person). Some people might say the moderation is too lax, I disagree, I think its right, things are done behind the scenes at times that members don't see, and harsh moderation can have a more damaging effect. If I applied the rules as strictly as they are written then I could probably ban 80% of the members if I wanted to.