Another set of fair, and well thought out questions, IMO.
What we generally see is that more participation on the site causes higher traffic which then causes more participation, especially from people that are seeking help and looking for answers. The members that frequent the site and post often tend to be more educated with the "radio related subjects", but in reality are in the minority of visitors here. Actually, traffic resulting from people searching google for various radio topics out-number the regulars roughly on a scale of 3:1 (maybe more than that). When people find the forum through searches for help, the stats tell us that the sign-ups and participation also increases. More posts and threads about radio related stuff makes the search engines happy and they reward the site accordingly by positioning our site higher in search results when people are searching for the related topics.
Does that mean we should all just post nonsense to increase traffic? No, of course not. Credibility is important also. We need traffic, but we need a good reputation, too. Sometimes this can be a fine border line to walk, and we may not always get it right.
The bottom line is that to ensure the survival of the site, we need people to feel comfortable about posting topics about radio, which includes their opinions on their equipment. To preserve the integrity of the site, we need to have an environment where everyone can feel free to discuss the merits of both the personal opinions and technical aspects of the posts, even if that means questioning moderators. However, if we create a community where personal attacks are the norm, we don't promote anything except hatred toward this hobby.
I'm not sure I helped explain anything, but if you have more questions on this topic feel free to ask.
