Hi guys
The vibrancy of CIU has been what has set it apart from the other forums and made it the biggest player by far.
This does mean that sometimes we live on the edge and it can be difficult to moderate.
The ability of the mods to ban has made a big difference, previously we had to contact Mike who may not have been available and some knew this and took advantage.
This has been used very sparingly and is only final in exceptional circumstances.
Obviously there are lurkers and suppliers with agenda's but this is inevitable in a large forum, having fully authenticated proper names would help in this respect but we would lose some of that vibrancy and it would become boring.
The forum has it's own way of balancing and when a post/ topic is placed to promote a product/company this is quickly balanced by others offering different opinions.
In summary we try to treat users as adults and the vast majority behave extremely well, there will always be a few who like to challenge this, but they can sometimes write very good posts as well as dross.
Cheers
Doug