>If you take a strict interpretation of the rules, most, if not all, get violated on a fairly regular basis.

Agreed.

>Therefore, I find that most of the "rules" are worthless. What is of value are the guidelines for posting a message.

If anything, the etiquette section is also worthless, since most of them are anti-newbie posting guides, which almost by definition are useless since the very people most likely to use caps, post multiple questions, and use vague subject lines, haven't read that yet, and will be "policed" if you will by the community.

>I would bet the ranch and the dog that if rules regarding what is/is not appropriate content were abolished, the climate here would not change at all. Dedicated forum membership have good and effective ways of policing their own.

I agree with you here, little is likely to change in the short term, as this community is very well knit, and its culture established.

But I think too that evolution plays a role--both in terms of: threads survive that generate enough interest, those that aren't of interest to the community die; and What is culturally acceptable/unacceptable will change over time.

In the spirit of this, I propose we start threads on the following links:

http://www.kkk.com/
http://www.teensfuckingteens.com
http://www.smalltalk.org/
http://www.peta-online.org/

--Or are these inappropriate for this forum?

Obviously, if no one takes them up, then clearly the self-policing works, but what if a small vocal minority take them up, is it acceptable to have subject lines like:

KKK rules!
Yeah did you see that bitch!!!!!!!!!!
Smalltalk rules all you VFP'rs suck!
Eat the flesh of animals you fag!
GET RICH FAST!!! (posted to all forums)

One of the reasons proposed as to why usenet quality is declining is their problems with spamming and flaming. Signal to noise ratio seems be better on moderated lists.

My question is, how does one moderate a list without rules?

Best,
Bill