I'm trying to recall the name of a crowd sourcing project where... I think participants were trying to arrange shreds of documents back into their original form. But then there was basically one guy who used different IP addresses to mess up everyone's process. And in the end, that one person was able to ruin the contest.<p>Anyway, that's the tug & pull of building a community on-line and featuring unfettered free speech. I don't think you can have both at the same time, only one or the other.<p>Both community and free speech are their own kind of tyrannies, but then how does one become better than the other? Well, I think it's to the degree that the members of either forum style are thoughtful, wise and can absorb new information. And I think that a forum that is striving to be a community of some kind, rather than a watering hole for everyone with every idea, is going to be more successful at providing something helpful to people.<p>Because let's face it, internet forums are for the most part a vast wasteland of stupid, ignorant comments and opinions. There's a lot of dummies out there. And there's a lot of people who like to troll and break things. In some places it's actively encouraged. Moderation of forums is probably the best way to go if you want to build something that people can use and find lasting value in.