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Quick side note about consistency. "Inconsistency" definitely has a negative connotation to it, but it's not necessarily a bad thing. Things have never been consistent across different moderators; as already noted previously, Achronos and Shishka were always, respectively, the strictest and second-strictest with the rules. Inherently, the ability to say that someone is more or less strict reveals inconsistency. But inconsistency does not necessarily mean unfairness. It simply means that whether you are banned for 30 days, seven days, or not at all depends on who catches you. If you break the rules, you should expect punishment, and a complaint from a spammer that he got a 60-day ban when his buddy only got 30 days is silly.
Just like in the real world (where sometimes if you fight a speeding ticket, you will get off completely, and sometimes the judge will sentence you to traffic school, and sometimes the judge will sentence you to a $400 fine), a lot depends on who catches you breaking the rules and how they are with rule enforcement. That is the nature of subjectivity, and is a far better alternative than the only other viable method of enforcement, which would be mandatory harsh bans for every single violation of the rules.
For me, the mods are all doing great because in their own ways, they are very consistent with themselves and rarely -- if ever -- blatantly unfair. A person who breaks the rules should expect punishment of some sort, and they have no right to complain about its severity. To me, as long as the blacklistings and bans on this site occur only for violations of the rules, the severity (or lack thereof) of punishment does not need to be perfectly consistent. This reflects the real world and is perfectly acceptable, as it builds in the ability to evaluate specific circumstances.
Sorry, I know that's a bit off-topic to the original post, but I just wanted to add my thoughts on consistency.
As for community, of course it has changed and Meech is right. Compare it to a small town growing into a huge city. You don't know everyone walking down the street anymore, even though other benefits of living in a huge city are present. Huge cities need more strict law enforcement (you can't set off fireworks in your apartment, even though you might be able to do it in your backyard in a small town if nobody else lives near you) and with more law enforcers comes more inconsistency in their enforcement (once again -- not necessarily a bad thing). Also, in a small town, you're a lot more likely to personally know the mayor and have him drop by for dinner than in a larger city. Moreover, there comes less feeling of community, until you realize that there are places you can go where you do know almost everybody (your favorite bar, or social group, or wherever) and you can regain the sense of a smaller community within that large city.
To me, it's the same deal here -- we still have the groups, some of which are indeed quite active little communities (one of my most active groups has only 20 members). We also still have the Septagon, which despite its public nature, tends to see the same 40 or 50 posters on a regular basis (even though, granted, our topics of discussion here are limited). The web team still administers the site, even though it's less likely to be able to interact with each of us on a personal level due to the sheer size of the community. And moderators need to be more strict with rule enforcement because failure to do so would make the forums unreadable -- 50 people going off-topic is a lot worse than 5. To me it all makes perfect sense.
Communities that are awesome tend to attract more people and grow. I would expect nothing less of the Bungie Community. My advice is to recognize that this will result in less feeling of closeness. If you desire the close community feeling, you can still find it here -- if your groups suck, ask around and find some good ones. As far as rule enforcement goes, don't break the rules and you'll never have anything to worry about. It is, after all, possible to have fun while not breaking the rules :-)
[Edited on 09.11.2007 12:47 PM PDT]