I am glad that the forum is having an open discussion on this subject.
Originally I frequented a different oz camping forum, but found a few members were doing the majority of the posting and what they had to say was usually negatively aggressive towards to OP (usually making the OP feel silly for asking such a basic question) and were aggressive to anyone who ventured to have a different opinion, the result being that many people stopped bothering to post, the OPs original question would go unanswered and the thread would go off topic and not return. The case of a few ruining it for the many. That site is now heavily moderated, I can only guess that it was to try stamp out the above behavior and try keep it a community focused site.
Because of the behavior at the above mentioned site, I chose to quietly move on (I did not bring any particular posts to the attention of the moderator, what was the point? the forum was full of similar posts)
When I found myswag (maybe four years ago now) I found it to be great, everyone was easy going, conflict happened rarely and usually was sorted out by the people involved fairly quickly without the need for intervention, I was floored by the difference between the two forums, apart from the theme of camping and 4WDs the two forums were as different as night and day. And to this day I find the majority of the members still enjoy the same feeling of enjoying a discussion, sharing their knowledge and the friendly atmosphere this forum has radiated.
However, in the past 6 months or so I have noticed an increased level of agitation within the forum, more people attacking others for having different points of view, making jokes at the expense of other members, language that would surely take more effort to type than not type and the posting of topics that just dont belong on this forum (not everything has to be camping related, we all enjoy discussing a variety of topics. but come on, use some common sense in what you post.)
Remember the moderators do this because they enjoy what they do, what happens when they stop enjoying it?