My experiences with internet forums

[The Valkyrie]

Forums aren't a free community service.
Someone owns it and pays to keep it running.

It's their house, their rules.
I'm cool with that.

This.

You'll find that the staff here is a lot more fair and balanced than many forums where the admins and mods have cart blanche to do whatever they want.

We cannot, for instance, arbitrarily ban someone simply because we don't like them (as much as we'd like to) or for their posts.  There's a lot of discussion that goes on before action is taken (some of it can get quite heated), and the staff are held to account by very clear rules, by the membership (often), and by each other.

Try getting that on many other boards, in particular the religious ones.  I know people who have been banned immediately just for saying they're an atheist.