NJDavid, you clearly bring up how anonymity impacts on social dynamics. Censure means everything in a tribe, a great deal in a small, religious community, and almost nothing in a large metropolitan area. Even less is a virtual society.

And Opus, the battle for leadership you mention is core to what is going on. While leadership is earned, the fight for virtual hegemony does not mirror corporeal society. It is too easy for the Old Guard to leave and put their time in less contentious matters.

Since the earliest fires, humans banned together for protection and because we are social animals. Laws emerged to maintain social order, and punishments to deter miscreants and to restore balance (punishing for taking your neighbors crops returns the pre-crime equilibrium and denies benefit for fracturing this social order).

In Flyertalk, we have banded together for “informational” protection to help navigate hotel and airline bureaucracies. With knowledge the commodity, bad information is akin to theft.

We have the classic class system in FT as found in primitive society.

At the top, the Priest Class, in our case Randy P. Much like Moses could bring plagues by religio-magical intervention, so could Randy smite wrongdoers by techno-magically deleting them.

Our civil authorities, such as Catman, Rudi, Premex, etc. do the organizational work that makes the society run. As timelessly true to human nature: some people create, some criticize.

There are those amongst us who have a great deal of moral authority, such as Punki and Jon Toner. These people do not so much lead, as they push people into ethical decision making.

Flyertalk will fall and rise, as have many other cultures. Yet, while it took the Barbarians years and hordes to storm the gates of Rome, apparently our society is vulnerable to a few thousand posts from down under.