But then, I guess that in other sites there's the freedom of saying "Byrne is a lying sob", or something similar. People are really negative in the internet and they need platforms that allow that.

What I find curious is that the JBF seems to have a perennial limit of 600 members. New people seem to join on a regular basis, but it seems to be one in, one out all the time, keeping the number around 600. I genuinely thought that new members would join through Elsewhen, but nope, around 600 it remains.

I do agree with Didier regarding visitors who do not register though. I did that for around a year before I joined (EDIT: in fact, just checking my join date - it must have been over a year because I know I used to visit this page at my old employer, and I've been with this one since 2006)

The content delivery system seems to be as important as the content itself, as it was reported years ago that more people are using the Internet for social media than for email!

I've also read that the message board format is unfortunately fading away in favor of social media as well. The New York Times did a story in 2011 (!!!) about this decline:  https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/10/remembrance -of-message-boards-past/

Here's another story from a web design magazine advising programmers / designers to not bother with them:  https://medium.com/web-design-web-developer-magazine/interne t-forums-are-generally-speaking-long-dead-dont-do-them-85031 404fd6d