It is my opinion rules should not be necessary at all. If everyone here remains civil, respects one another and stays out of conversations they don't have anything constructive to add to, everything should be just fine.

It seems to me, there are only two reasons to feel rules are needed as guidelines in a forum:

1)If a person intends to be antagonistic towards others and wants to know the boundries because civility is not a part of his or her agenda.

2)Moderators who have a distorted idea of authority and abuse that authority needs them to have excuses to exercise their power over those with less power.

I think a forum community which acts adult-like towards one another is quite capable of making anyone who would abuse other members realize they had better shape up or ship out.

That is how communities are supposed to operate. Not with a bunch of rules and power hungry moderators acting like police to create a sense of fairness through fear.