It's easy to appear to be the leader of a group if you're at an end and the group doesn't know where it's going.

The challenge is actually leading the group somewhere.

For years, many have said our direction should be becoming the internet's high quality travel forum, with travel veterans and novices - a place to really speak for the frequent traveler in conversation with the industry's service providers.

The first diversion from that goal was the plethora of clickthrough schemes and conga lines that invaded the board, but that was at least confined to it's own SPAM corner. As Marty correctly reminds us, Pudding Guy's exploits brought in a whole new wave of diversions. People who had no tolerance for opinions other than their own, People who were vulgar and obnoxious, People who didn't fit the goal.

The community begged our hosts for a mechanism to deal with these diversions. As none came, travel veterans started to dissappear or severely curtail their participation. If the past ratio was 6 out of 10 posts from real experienced travelers, 3 out of 10 somewhat novices and 1 out of 10 from someone with no business being here, the current ratio would be something like 3 - 3 - 4. And keep in mind that this ratio is now applied over a much larger group. It's that signal to noise issue again.

This is not rocket science here. It's simple group dynamics. The larger a group gets, the greater the necessity for formal rules and an enforcement process. What worked for us when we were a amall town of 50 has failed us miserably now that we're a community of 1000 or more - Just as anyone would expect. "Honor Parking" lots (where you park your car and put $5 in a box) work well in small towns I've visited in Maine, but they would fail miserably in Manhattan. Not because they are not a good idea (people are basically honorable and will do the right thing) but because as the number of people in your community grows, the likelyhood that you will have one or more persons who will flaunt the rules grows as well. That's why we have police and jails.

So, we are not a leaderless group, we are a ruleless group. Is it really any wonder why many have said, "sorry, not worth my time anymore, let the loudmouths do whatever they want, we're outta here"?