No offense, and I'm not aiming this at anyone specific. But some members get out of control, they start spamming the forums with bullshit, any forum that is. If we wish to be taken serious, attract new members, receive review samples, be mentioned on the box of the new Geforce 9800 ĂĽber turbo deluxe edition, we need to be taken serious.
As a mod I look at the rules thing from the other side, to me (and I'm not alone) certain members (and no I'm not naming anyone) are out of control. They spam a lot and take a lot of members with them. Unfortunately if we don't put up barriers for these select view a lot of active members will join in on "the fun" and things will get nasty. Controlling a group of 20 by taking one out is easy and doesn't look too bad. However when there are thousands of people, hundreds of daily active members taking out 20 easily looks like we're strict. I don't think we are, I've read many complaints of various members about "site x banned me because I said this and that", I don't think you get banned easily here. If you manage to do so you're obviously out of line, if not you should be able to communicate about this with us mods. If not we were apparently right about banning you.
I can't of course disagree with the statement that growth introduces more rules, but this is necessary. Just imagine a country with as much rules as your school. Or imagine a school with just the (unwritten)rules of your friends club.