Social interaction doesn't scale. I don't think it can.
When a community is small, you can moderate it effectively with only a small amount of effort. Back in the early 00s, I moderated a couple of development forums on an amateur console development site. I would hop on for an hour or two, read some posts, reply to some, and that was mostly it. Moderation was mostly saying, "Hey Bob, cool it. We all know your feelings on tabs vs spaces, but that's not a topic we discuss here and it's irrelevant to Frank's post."
And we all knew Frank, and we all knew Bob. And we all knew me.
Eventually, if you get big enough, there are people posting all the time. No single person can monitor the board all the time. You'd need a group. You need time. And for people with things to do, they have better things to do than to remind people of the rules yet again.
So what happens in really large discussion forums, those with the most time begin to make the de facto rules. And those are exactly the people you don't want making the rules. Because those with the most spare time on their hands aren't going to be experts. They're not going to be skilled. The only skill they'll have is the ability to spend time on a forum.
When a community is small, you can moderate it effectively with only a small amount of effort. Back in the early 00s, I moderated a couple of development forums on an amateur console development site. I would hop on for an hour or two, read some posts, reply to some, and that was mostly it. Moderation was mostly saying, "Hey Bob, cool it. We all know your feelings on tabs vs spaces, but that's not a topic we discuss here and it's irrelevant to Frank's post."
And we all knew Frank, and we all knew Bob. And we all knew me.
Eventually, if you get big enough, there are people posting all the time. No single person can monitor the board all the time. You'd need a group. You need time. And for people with things to do, they have better things to do than to remind people of the rules yet again.
So what happens in really large discussion forums, those with the most time begin to make the de facto rules. And those are exactly the people you don't want making the rules. Because those with the most spare time on their hands aren't going to be experts. They're not going to be skilled. The only skill they'll have is the ability to spend time on a forum.