Here is a great piece on what is actually kind of normal these days regarding forums and the internet.

The effects of self-selection.

Comments, forums, and chatrooms all usually require that you register or take the time to type out your thoughts. As a result, the only people who tend to bother doing such a thing are people who feel particularly positive or negative about something. All of the people who feel neutral or only slightly lean one way or another get lost because sharing their opinion is not worth the investment of time and effort for them.

In this way, internet discourse self-selects for the most extreme viewpoints. And unfortunately, only being presented with the extreme viewpoints in any situation causes our views to diverge even further. The debate becomes defined by the extreme minorities at both polls while the silent majority in the middle either checks out entirely or gets sucked into one extreme viewpoint or the other.

Of course I am bias.  But when I look at reading our forum from the viewpoints of a new member, a member that never posts, a regular reader that reads but never gets involved in discussions or sharing their viewpoints, etc., etc., etc., I think I am understanding more about the discourse of self-selects and the values that can be so easily shared and learned by the masses.

It sure would be great (beyond great really) if many other people would become involved within the forum with their thoughts, experiences, research, results and knowledge.  Seriously.