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I'm in the midst of one of our periodic debates over what goes and what doesn't in our politics and religion forums. At any given time, we'll have 20 to 45 members and a couple of hundred guests on the board. We have 13,000 members and close to 400,000 posts. The board's approaching its fifth anniversary.

A couple of years ago I simply deleted the politics forum, and lost my best members to another board they created. It since has imploded under the weight of the same members who caused me to delete the first politics forum.

After that board imploded, I brought back the politics forum and added a religion forum.

Everybody understood the rules against flaming, pornography, foul language. The old timers who flounced a couple of years ago insist on being able to say whatever they please, but they usually conform to my rules on my board.

A couple of old timers are big on gay marriage, and post a lot about that and sexual issues important to women, who make up 99% of the board.

This upset the anti-gay marriage and pro religious crowd. An old timer who's created his own "Christian" version of our board came over and posted a poll asking if the posts on sex and gay marriage drove away members and kept new ones from joining. After a week of this, I suggested that "flooding" the board with sex and gay marriage threads was a bit over the top. The ladies "flounced" and took some active posters with them to their "home" board, which has a lot of our former members.

My approach has been to discuss the issues, explain why I have to keep the board tone civil and acceptable to all and at the same time encourage debate and interesting discussions. They don't buy it, accusing me of "censorship" and of driving a particularly controversial and active poster away, which isn't what I did.

So now I've lost my active posters in the politics and religion forums, a few of whom actively posted in other forums as well. My general philosophy is that this will all blow over. I'll lose some, win some. The new members are more important to my business than the old timers, most of whom leave after a couple of years anyway due to the nature of our board and their lives.

The purpose of the politics and religion sites is the same as the money and investing, movie, weight loss, books and other off topic forums. That is, I am trying to provide a place where friends made in our on topic forums can discuss whatever interests them. The politics and religion forums get relatively little participation, but the people who post in them do so frequently and have a lot of fun debating, when they're not fighting, flaming , etc. And I like to talk politics.

Since I own and moderate the board by myself, I make the decisions after listening to suggestions and complaints. And I often engage in online debates about policy, etc. Sometimes these debates become our most active threads for awhile. It may be a mistake, because some people get upset and leave.

What I say is that if you are going to post about sex three or four times in one afternoon, you're hurting the board, and this may not be the best place for you. And if all you're going to do is advocate for gay marriage and nothing else, this may not be the place for you. Of course, if you leave, you lose a great platform for discussing issues important to you, but that's your decision.

The old timers know I can zap and will if I need too. They also know I zap trolls in a flash, and they know that I don't want to zap any threads nor ban them. So we have this little dance going on. I don't think they're looking too good, and some of the members are telling them to get cool or get lost.

We'll see.